BESPOKE WALL PANELLING FROM ARMSTRONG CEILINGS
HELPS HACKNEY TO AWARD-WINNING HEIGHTS
Customised wall panels by Armstrong Ceiling Solutions have
proved a key feature in the award-winning refurbishment of the
Grade II listed Hackney Town Hall.
The folded bronze anodised aluminium panels were selected by
regular Armstrong specifiers Hawkins\Brown architects for the end
walls of two underused interior service courtyards that have been
transformed into full-height multi-functional atria as part of the
redevelopment.
The bespoke wall panels were custom perforated by laser into
a pattern that mimics the original walls behind, including aged
brickwork, Crittall windows, drain pipes and services. They serve
to conceal new ducts linked to the smoke ventilation system and
feature an acoustic fleece behind the panels to absorb sound.
Some 110m2 of the 1.5mm WH-1000 2m x 1m panels, which
also feature a butterfly effect, where random perforations have
been fabricated into “wings” to dapple the light, were installed
by specialist Omega sub-contractor Roskel Contracts for main
contractor Osborne onto a lightweight steel framing system on
the walls at the eastern ends of the north and south atria.
These were complemented by anodised trough boxes containing
continuous strips of LED lights at the top of each three-storey wall.
Hawkins/Brown associate director Chloe Marshall said: “We
wanted to choose a standard proprietary acoustic wall cladding
system for which we could customise the perforation pattern and
selected the W-H 1000 Armstrong product after advice from the
representative that this would meet our performance requirements
and design intent.”
Hawkins Brown then created two abstract images of each original
windowed brick wall using the computer programme Grasshopper
through which they programmed in the technical and aesthetic
parameters and “plugged in” photographs.
“It was important to us that the perforation pattern could be
customised to create a new feature within the rooms rather than
a dominating plain rear wall. A bronzed finish was selected to
link to the historic building materials of the 1930s interior and to
interface well with the London Stock brickwork and painted steel
structure of the new ETFE roof.”
Built in 1937 to an Art Deco-style design by architects Lanchester
and Lodge, Hackney Town Hall has been the subject of an
exhaustive 12-year and 12,500m2 restoration and refurbishment
programme throughout which it has remained fully open.
In the new atria, the brickwork is topped by a continuous steel
ring beam that supports the new ETFE roof spanned by secondary
beams. The former service yard’s basement floor has been raised
to ground-floor level to allow level access from the refurbished
marriage suites which now open onto the new atria’s resin terrazzo
floor.
Hackney Town Hall won a 2018 RIBA Award (London Part 2). The
judges said: “This long-term, multi-phased conservation project
is more than a refurbishment, as certain architectural moves
have made significant improvements. These have generally been
well-judged but the really impressive work has gone into the
detailing. Nowhere has any cost or effort been spared so that the
refurbishment has been carried out to the very highest standards.
The overall detailing is impeccable and is the most rewarding
aspect of the project.”
More information is accessible via the Armstrong Ceilings
website www.armstrongceilings.com/commercial.
Further information about the project is available via the
Hawkins\Brown website www.hawkinsbrown.com/projects/
hackney-town-hall
Roskel director Alan Brown added: “The panels were perforated
to individual patterns and when combined formed the overall
image. The perforation pattern and anodised finish were new
to Armstrong and proved challenging but the desired finish and
visual effect were achieved.”
Previously shabby and in need of investment to create more office
space, many of the building’s original Art Deco fittings and fixtures
had been left intact, and this combined with a forward-thinking
local authority, meant the planners were very open to new ideas
and interventions, the Armstrong walls being just one of many
elements.