KAWNEER GLAZING
SYSTEMS GET UNDER
THE SKIN OF A NEW
CITY CAMPUS
Modular or off-site curtain walling by leading UK manufacturer
Kawneer has played a key role in a building which forms the
centrepiece of Imperial College London’s new White City campus.
The bespoke, twin-skin and triple-glazed ventilated curtain walling,
based on Kawneer’s unitised AA ® 201 system, features on the main
south elevation of the Molecular Sciences Research Hub (MSRH) in
the college’s first new campus in over a century.
Designed for fast-track installation, it has been used alongside
a single-skin version of the AA ® 201 curtain walling on the north
façade and feature AA ® 720 fixed light casement windows and
AA ® 720 commercial entrance doors. The AA ® 720 range is Kawneer’s
most thermally efficient.
The 26,000m2 landmark building designed by Aukett Swanke was
initially delivered as a shell and core scheme in late 2016, alongside
the new Translation and Innovation Hub as part of the college’s
second-phase £110m development which followed the architects’
Phase 1 post-graduate student accommodation project.
It provides nine floors of Department of Chemistry laboratory
space and support facilities and two basement levels which include
lecture facilities and an Energy Centre for the whole site which has
become a vibrant urban quarter integrating an academic programme
with office, residential and retail facilities.
The competition brief focussed on flexibility of the building.
Imperial College and its joint venture development partners Voreda
sought an agile ‘chassis’ for the building which could accommodate
current uses but which could be easily adaptable for future change,
and avoid the limitations of bespoke characteristics to the form,
floorplates, superstructure, shell and services strategy.
At a later point in the design development the college’s
accommodation strategy led to the building being refined
specifically for Molecular Research as part of the Department of
Chemistry. Again the design of the ‘chassis and bodywork’ proved to
be extremely flexible, incorporating high use of fume cupboards for
extensive laboratory use. Plant room provisions were also refined
to allow for more intensive servicing and ventilation, all within the
envelope of the consented shell and core.
www.imperial.ac.uk
Initially the superstructure was conceived as in-situ concrete with
flat slab, again to easily accommodate laboratory uses and more
conventional research and office space. Working closely with the
contractor, and after visits to its pre-fabrication plant in Worksop,
Nottinghamshire, the scheme was proved flexible enough to adapt,
adopting precast sub-structure and super-structure construction as
well as the modular reconstituted precast fabrication of the storey
height east and west façade treatment. This decision underscored
the flexibility of the design and also proved beneficial in reducing
the overall construction programme.