Our smooth delivery of the trademark curved façade at Bowmer and Kirkland’s flagship Island development highlights how planning coordination and communication is key to the success of challenging, design-led projects.
As architectural ambition grows, modern building designers are increasingly stepping away from the square, replacing angular corners with sweeping curved façades. But while the aesthetic appeal is clear, the technical complexity required to achieve the desired effect can create technical challenges for contractors.
At Bowmer and Kirkland’s pioneering ‘Island’ scheme in central Manchester – a 100,000ft2 Net Zero Carbon workspace – Acorn Aluminium’s successful delivery of the striking curved façade is a defining feature of the development.
Featuring 2,500m2 of Senior Architectural Systems’ SPW600 window and SF52 curtain walling products, laser-cut metal vent panels are another stand-out building design detail, also supplied and fitted by us.
“The main challenge on this project was the curved elements to each corner of the building,” says Craig Key, Operations Manager at Acorn Aluminium.
“It’s very much design-led, but there was no room for compromise in terms of performance. There were lots of interfaces to get right.
“There are different radiuses between glass, profile and caps… We’ve got some flush elements and some non-flush elements, so there’s a lot of coordination that goes into that.
“These products are high-cost items. If we’d got the curve of the profile or the curve of the glass wrong, none of it would have gone together. We’d have had to start again – which would have been expensive,” adds Craig.
With such high stakes and little room for error, precision, planning and strong communication between our technical teams, suppliers and project partners was essential for the successful delivery of such a complex façade.
“Coordination between all our technical teams was essential to ensure that what we were sourcing was accurate and would go in the building first time, and the core part of that is communication,” continues Craig.
“If our teams don’t communicate with the supply chain and vice versa, it’s not going to go well.”
Finding the right balance between delivering the architect’s vision while still satisfying performance, tolerance and installation requirements was another key challenge addressed by us, in part, by its use of offsite manufacturing.
As well as facilitating faster fitting on-site, pre-assembling the façade in a controlled factory environment increased accuracy and consistency. It also reduced the likelihood of errors and made tighter tolerances – a key aspect of the curved corner features – easier to achieve.
“We only came on site to do the ground floor curtain walling areas, and the rest was all brought in on the back of a truck,” Craig explains.
Thanks to its extensive technical experience and expertise, Acorn’s successful delivery of the Island project makes ambitious façade requirements look easy, giving clients confidence that challenging designs can be delivered smoothly.
“Island says a lot about what Acorn can do,” adds Craig.
“There’s a lot of very complex, technical elements to it and it proves that Acorn can deliver the goods competently, within design specification and in line with the architect’s intent.
“If you’re looking for someone to partner with on a challenging scheme, I’d say just look at what we’ve done with Island.”
For more about Acorn Aluminium, please call 0115 928 2166, email [email protected], or visit www.acornaluminium.com.