Combined use of reconstructed stone and GRC cladding at the Mailbox
Trent Concrete has demonstrated how well traditional precast reconstructed stonework and GRC cladding can be used to suit different applications on the same project, at the recently completed Mailbox in Birmingham.
The front elevation is partially clad in 600 square metres of acid-etched reconstructed stone cladding. This forms the façade of the four-star Malmaison Hotel, with a large entrance portal leading into the open-air up-market Wharfside Street retail/office area and pedestrian link-way. Here, the 1400 square metres of buff GRC cladding matches the precast stone work on the façade, but solved access and craneage challenges through its lightweight, manoeuvrable qualities.
The Mailbox was created from the former Royal Mail sorting office, and is now a large mixed-use residential, retail, office, leisure and hotel development. Trent Concrete's preferred supplier status with Carillion was influential in winning the contract for this project, and now, based on the quality and accuracy of Trent's work at The Mailbox, Trent is in discussion with Birmingham Mailbox Ltd. about partnering together on future developments in the locality.
Client: Birmingham Mailbox Ltd.
Architect: Associated Architects & Weedon Partnership
Contractor: Carillion
Engineer: Curtins Consulting
Notes
Trent Concrete is a specialist precast concrete contractor, producing high quality bespoke architectural cladding and structures.
Providing a complete solution from detailed design development through skills-based manufacture to on-site erection using its own teams, Trent Concrete partners with leading developers and specifiers to ensure that their projects gain maximum benefit from prefabrication.
Trent Concrete's precast solutions make a major contribution to improved quality, certainty, sustainability, safety and efficiency in the UK construction industry today.
The company has worked on some of the most prestigious projects of recent years, including The Scottish Office and the Toyota GB Plc and Thames Water headquarters buildings, and the quality of its work is consistently recognised in the form of industry awards.
Trent Concrete was founded in 1917 and is based in Nottingham, where it employs more than 200 people.
Editorial contact: David Walker
Tel: 0115 987 9747
Email: lmason@trentconcrete.co.uk
Trent Concrete Limited - e-mail: quality@trentconcrete.co.uk