Precast Firm Wins Award
No 1 Coleman Street, a 20,000m2 commercial development in the City of London, has an exterior appearance that exploits the unique characteristics of the building’s form. The scheme uses polished precast concrete cladding panels configured in a geometric arrangement derived from the curvature of the building’s floor plate but expressed through a series of interlocking and alternating triangulated surfaces. In the design and construction of the façade, the complex geometric structure posed many significant challenges to Decomo, the precast concrete manufacturers, and led to many variations in the cladding details. No coping stones or pier caps were used in this unique building.
More than Pier Caps at the Natural History Museum
A £78M extension to London’s Natural History Museum featuring the largest sprayed concrete curved wall in Europe opens this week.
Concrete sprayed onto an expanded metal mesh was used for the central “cocoon” of the extension. The cocoon houses 17M entomology specimens and 3M botany specimens in 3.3km of cabinets.
The construction method was chosen as it reduced the cost of constructing the 60m-long, 12m-wide and eight storey high amorphous shape.
“We considered steel, precasting concrete offsite and insitu concrete but each steel mullion, precast panel or piece of formwork would have been different as there is no repetition,” said Arup associate director Ed Newman-Sanders.
See, concrete is good for lots more than making pier caps and coping stones!
British Pre-Cast Annual Review
British Precast has issued its 2009 Annual Review, which this year incorporates all entries from their the Best Practice Awards 2009. The review officially covers the year to May 2009 but they have taken the opportunity to add more recent news including the signing of the Affiliation agreement with the Mineral Products Association in June.
Chief Executive Martin Clarke said: “We are pleased to catalogue the successes of our member companies in this latest report. Despite the enormous difficulties placed on our members in the pre-cast concrete industry. We are determined to maintain the pace of improvement in key areas such as safety and sustainability.
“A healthy precast manufacturing base is key to the country’s future housing and infrastructure delivery programme. We are privileged to represent the best companies in our field and all staff look forward to the challenges ahead.”
