Kawneer - Life's a Breeam with Kawneer curtain walling
When the architects were tasked with
achieving a very good BREEAM rating for a new office
block that required a striking glazed building façade
because of its location on a main arterial route into
Plymouth, only Kawneer’s curtain walling and structural
glazing would do.
The seven-storey building on the city’s North Street
uses Kawneer’s dry-jointed curtain walling over most of
the elevations, complemented by structural silicone
glazing, a range of windows with polyamide thermal
breaks which offer exceptional thermal performance, and
narrow-style doors.
The brief was to build six storeys of office space
totalling 57,000ft² for Land Securities Trillium to
lease to the Department of Work and Pensions (JobCentre
Plus) with a 4,000ft² commercial unit at street level
owned initially by Sutton Harbour Holdings and now by
Wichford Alpha.
The £11million steel frame design and build by Kier
Western was on the 2,000m² site of council apartments
and a community park and is now a prominent feature on a
significant gateway into the city centre. The glass lift
and staircase which are clad with Kawneer’s structural
silicone glazing are landmark features on it.
Michael Board of architects Lacey Hickie Caley said they
specified Kawneer “because of the use of their
structural silicone glazing with a curtain walling
system and because Kier Western selected SIAC as their
specialist contractor.”
The curtain walling, silicone glazing, windows and
doors, which interact with stone and metal rainscreen
panels and through-colour render, were all supplied in
metallic grey and installed by Kawneer-approved
installer SIAC with a brise soleil system.
“A place of work should provide a lot of natural light
while still providing a comfortable working environment.
The building was also intended to look like a glass
block. We selected Kawneer curtain walling as we felt
this achieved these aspects.
“A large amount of this building is curtain walling so
it has a significant impact on the design of this
building,” said Michael Board at LHC who have used
Kawneer curtain walling before on several buildings,
including Tamar Science Park and Cattedown Extra Care,
both in Plymouth.
The location of the building posed a number of
logistical challenges for SIAC, with busy roads around
all sides of the site.
Peter Cochin, director of SIAC, said: “We effectively
only had the footprint of the building as our working
area. There were no site storage facilities and access
for deliveries was restricted to off-peak times only.
“However, we worked closely with Kier and overcame these
issues by an effective programme of just-in-time
deliveries to site which optimised the available space
and access options to ensure the installation was
completed on time."
Email:
tracy@tlcpr.co.uk
Arundel Jones Associates Ltd
Hill Farm, Linton Hill, Maidstone, Kent ME17 4AL
Tel : 01622 745333
news@buildingdesign.co.uk
Registered in England and Wales No. 07334149
News Categories : Curtain Wall Systems
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