No.1 Colmore Square reaps rewards from off-site fabrication
Trent Concrete was recently awarded the £1.7m cladding contract for Richardson Barberry’s prestigious office development at No.1 Colmore Square, its third project in Birmingham’s premier commercial district.
Trent will design, manufacture and erect 3500 square metres of Jura limestone-faced spandrel and mullion units, and 1600 square metres of Ibstock brick-faced, storey-high punched window panels, to follow the architectural elevations designed by The Fairhursts Design Group.
The original design was for hand-set in-situ stone and brick work, but Trent egotiated a prefabricated solution based on the benefits demonstrated on previous projects.
Off-site fabrication results in improved quality, accuracy and reliability, reduces the potential for accidents on site and removes the requirement for scaffolding. It also enables frame to panel jointing to be more rigorously inspected, keeping air leakage through the building fabric to a minimum.
For No.1 Colmore Square, Trent is also providing access and resources for the window contractor to pre-install windows into the brick-faced panels at the factory. This further enhances the benefits of the prefabrication solution, with just-in-time delivery of pre-glazed units enabling early enclosure of a dry building envelope.
Trent starts on site in October.
Client: Richardson Barberry
Contractor: Kier Build
Architect: The Fairhursts Design Group
Engineer: Curtins Consulting Engineers
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 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