Trent to clad relocated children's hospital in Brighton
Trent Concrete has been awarded the cladding contract for the relocated Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital, a PFI project in Brighton, by the project façade contractor English Architectural Glazing Ltd.
Trent's £715k contract covers 1900 square metres of flat, and 300 square metres of curved, storey-height punched window panels in a sparking white acid-etched reconstructed stone. In addition Trent is producing four 400mm deep coloured feature bands - in blue, green, orange and yellow - which run around the building, totalling 600 linear metres.
The building has been designed not to look like a hospital, incorporating soft forms and the widespread use of colour. Its ark-like shape, with each subsequent floor increasing in area, also maximises the small footprint available.
The large panel scheme, with the flat panels typically measuring 7.5m long by 3.8m high and the curved panels 4.8m long by 3.8m high, will enable early enclosure of a dry weatherproof envelope. This is particularly important in hospital construction, where there is a significant amount of follow-on M&E work to be undertaken.
Many of the panels will also be pre-glazed, with windows installed at Trent's Nottingham factory rather than on site. This further speeds up construction time and improves buildability, whilst also enhancing efficiency and safety by undertaking glazing whilst panels are readily accessible and at ground level. A similar scheme was successfully used at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon, also clad by Trent.
The relocated hospital is being constructed within the grounds of the existing Royal Sussex County Hospital, therefore both the design and the specification of the façade materials were based on the need to maintain all perimeter access roads. The pre-glazed precast panels were therefore the ideal façade material, since they are lifted directly from the delivery vehicle into their final position on the building without any requirement for external scaffolding.
Contractor: Kajima Construction Europe (UK) Ltd
Façade Contractor: English Architectural Glazing Ltd.
Architect & Engineer: Building Design Partnership
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, 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 160 people.
Editorial contact: David Walker
Tel: 0115 987 9747
Email: lmason@trentconcrete.co.uk
Trent Concrete Limited - e-mail: quality@trentconcrete.co.uk