Trent Concrete provides distinctive GRC bathroom units for new luxury hotel
Trent Concrete has supplied a series of GRC (glass reinforced concrete) vanity units and bath surrounds to the newly opened hotel Cowley Manor, and believes that these GRC products will appeal to specifiers for both commercial and domestic applications. Cowley Manor is a luxurious, understated 30-bedroom hotel, formed from an original 1800s Italianate manor house and stables in the Cotswolds village of Cowley.
Architects De Matos Storey Ryan specified GRC for the bathroom surfaces because it provided a cost effective and timely solution to creating seamless worktops that matched the Cotswold stone of the house. The alternative would have been to cut and craft the worktops from solid stone, but Trent devised a GRC mix that achieved the same aesthetic feel and appearance of natural Cotswold stone.
The GRC was sprayed into very accurate, robust moulds to provide a high quality unit, with a solidity comparable to dense natural stone materials. The finished units were lightly etched to produce a stone-like texture, and the surfaces were then sealed after installation.
The GRC vanity units and bath surrounds complement the overall design approach to the hotel as being 'warm minimalist - comfortable and textured, relaxed and informal, but clean-cut, stylish and timeless'.
GRC is a high cement content material, with up to 5% glass fibres. The concrete mix and chopped fibres are simultaneously sprayed in layers into a carefully prepared mould, and the GRC is then compacted with rollers. GRC mixes can be formulated to offer a range of colours, enabling specific architectural effects to be produced.
Client: Cowley Manor Partnership
Architect: De Matos Storey Ryan
Contractor: Pettifer Construction
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