Archetech Issue 40 2019 | Page 30

PREFABRICATED HIGH-CLASS FACADE ELEMENTS MADE IN GERMANY Prefabrication is and always has been a key issue in construction on account of the advantages associated with it: components can be manufactured under ideal conditions independent of weather and then mounted or assembled efficiently so as to save time and money. For example this way, it is now possible to mount prefabricated houses within a single day. Prefabricated elements also play a key role in the safety-relevant area of facades. Apart from the goal of saving time and money as referred to above, there is yet another advantage in densely-populated cities: in many cases, there simply is not enough space to store semi-finished products on construction sites in terms of safety and logistics. A perfect example of where these aspects applied was realized in London in 2018 and involved competent collaboration by the renowned German companies Lindner Fassaden GmbH (Arnstorf) and Agrob Buchtal GmbH (Schwarzenfeld). A PORTRAIT OF THE BUILDING OWNER The “Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine” (Imperial College) is a university and technical college of applied sciences in London. Founded in 1907, it is among the leading international institutions of its kind. In 2013, the facility acquired a site spanning 46,500 square metres in the London suburb of White City, with plans to erect a building housing research, teaching, companies, and apartments. This saw the entire campus area double to 93,000 square metres. These impressive figures are an indication of the sheer size and significance of Imperial College. Since then, lots has happened on the new site referred to as White City Campus (aka Technology Campus): the “Translation & Innovation Hub” opened in 2016; 2017 saw the “Invention Rooms” go into operation and ground was broken for the “Michael Uren Biomedical Engineering Research Hub”; the “Molecular Sciences Research Hub” (MSRH) opened in 2018. The so-called Block F was also built during this period. Completed in 2018, it accommodates around 200 apartments for key college personnel.