State-of-the-art security at one of the world's most modern museums

About the new National Museum in Oslo

The new National Museum in Oslo, centrally located at City Hall Square in Oslo, opened on June 11, 2022. Here, visitors can experience older and modern art, contemporary art, architecture and design, all under one roof. In total, the museum covers 54,600 m2. Approx. 350 employees works within the museum’s various functions.

SystemHouse Solutions' Integra system and Artifex for flexibility and integrations

The selected security systems for the National Museum in Oslo are from the manufacturer SystemHouse Solutions. The Integra system, with fully integrated intrusion alarm and access control, includes, among other things, 372 door environments with a total of 507 BCR-SD G2 card readers with keypad and color display, which make it easy, simple and safe for users to operate the system, as well as maintain an overview, regardless of where you are in the building.

Björn Forwald, technical leader at the National Museum, explains that the art objects, together with people, are the most important thing to protect in the building and that the security is designed with key words such as functionality and stability. Systems that control temperature and humidity are of the utmost importance for the art, and the museum is equipped with the super modern systems when it comes to ventilation and fire safety.

Oddbjörn Teigen, security section leader at the National Museum says that access control is very vital to avoid unauthorized or accidental changes to information within the systems. A log system is very important in order to be able to see who has been inside the system.

In the administrative part of the building, SystemHouse Solutions visitor management system Check In is installed, and the entire building is covered by fire protection from Autronica, which is also integrated into the Integra system. The overall management user interface is called Artifex, which is the web-based user interface for the Integra system. Artifex can collect all alarm points, door environments, and all the integrated systems in a visual platform that provides an excellent overview, easy and intuitive operation, and best-in-class graphic display of all the relevant points around the building.

At the National Museum, the Artifex user interface also includes an overview and operation of integrations for fire safety, guard communication and CCTV. In addition to this, the installation includes a data center with a VMware server solution, a screen wall with 10 screens, as well as various clients and monitors in the guard room - and several hundred CCTV cameras and radars to detect movement, both outdoors and indoors.

Björn Forwald goes on saying that a lot has happened since the project started, and along the way the installation has been changed and expanded based on new wishes and challenges that have arisen along the way. The integration with Traka key cabinets, which provides smart and simple handling of physical keys via the Integra system, is an example of a function that was not included in the original plan.

State-of-the-art fire protection from Autronica

The fire protection from Autronica is designed with important “system behind the system” functions that will detect deviations early. This is is extremely important in order to avoid, for example, sprinklers starting prematurely/unnecessarily, something that can be devastating to the works of art.
Björn Forwald tells us that there were a lot of tests of the functions before they dared to start moving the art in to the new museum. Furthermore, Björn explains that if a situation arises that triggers a fire alarm, an aspirating system will start up first, after which a visual inspection is made and, if necessary, the room is emptied of people and art.

Artifex - a successful last-minute transfer

One of the biggest challenges throughout the project has been getting the systems to be able to talk to each other and finally it became clear that the initially planned top system could not match the museum’s needs. Problems with gateways, but also high license costs, maintenance costs and several advanced functions that would not be used, were some of the things that led to a decision to switch to another top system.

Staff from the National Museum visited the Munch Museum, were Integra and Artifex also are installed, to view Artifex and Milestone (CCTV) in action, and a decision to switch to Artifex instead was made. This turned out to be a great decision made at the right time. “By switching to Artifex, administration of all integrations of the security system now takes place on one and the same screen, which is a big advantage,” says Oddbjörn Teigen, security section leader at the National Museum. “It was a lot of work to change the system, but since the basic work already had been done, and we knew what we needed, the change was still smooth”.

The museum has an internal guard center that is staffed 24/7.

Check In kiosks for administrative assistance

The National Museum needed a visitor system that relieved the reception with self-service. In addition, they wanted to keep track of evacuation lists and safety for visitors.

The Check In installation consists of two touch screens as well as a printer and scanner connected to two mini-PCs in self-designed desks. Here, guests sign in or scan their qr code that they received in advance if the visit is pre-booked in the Check In system. The system sends an SMS to the host for the visit and a visitor label is printed. The installation also includes an interface for the reception via SystemHouse Solutions cloud service, which can also manage the registration of guests and the printing of visitor labels. Evacuation lists can be printed directly or exported as an excel file from any client that is logged in to the cloud service.

The importance of good support

“A system is not ready when it is installed, but a lot is required even when everything is in place,” says Björn Forwald. “Here, support is of utmost importance and we want to highlight the support we received during this process. There has been great responsiveness when new functions had to be developed and a sense of security that throughout the project it was the same people who worked on the issues, who know the project and the building”.