New garden quarter
Technal and Ravenworth worked together to deliver a £4.2 million project for Telford Homes, including windows, patio and entrance doors, and curtain walling.
Telford Homes’ New Garden Quarter takes in some of the Olympic legacy land in Stratford, and features one, two and three-bedroom apartments, villas and sky villas set around a landscaped two-acre garden square.
Project architect Eleana Kontou said: “The brick-built eight-storey blocks feature uniform frontages broken down into a varied set of neighbouring buildings.
“The facade systems and materials generally have been selected to give the space a calm and civic character, while acting as a backdrop to the dramatic square’s landscape. The whole development has been designed to a high specification to ensure the best use of natural light. Facing the main square, the facades are punctuated by inset and Juliette balconies featuring Technal DF 75 Si tilt-before-turn windows and C125 patio doors. The top two floors are setback duplex penthouses with private roof terraces.
Specified by Telford Homes, Technal worked with installer Ravenworth and Telford Homes at the detailing stage to understand exactly how the systems interface.
“One example of this collaborative approach was the large 4m2 panes of glass on the balconies,” Telford Homes technical coordinator Martin Conroy said. “To ease installation and maintenance, the spans were split with a transom and installed in line with the balcony itself so that the glass still looks like one pane.”
Oscar Webb, commercial director at Barking-based fabricator Ravenworth, said: “The first phase of the development comprises eight blocks. In real terms this means a total of 6,500 sealed units with 2,500 windows and doors installed, finished in 8019 grey brown internally and externally. The installation started off especially fast with four blocks going up simultaneously; the systems being fitted in phases, level by level, via scaffolding.”
The Technal aluminium facade systems selected met regulatory requirements. Including the Building Control Body and National Housebuilding Council (NHBC), Lifetime Homes and London Housing Design Guide compliance, as well as Secured by Design (SBD) for the main entrance doors at the client’s request.
Thermal performance was also a priority, with the overall U-value for all windows set at 1.4W/m2k, and acoustic performance had to be addressed for the balconies that face a railway track.
To achieve the 38dB RW+Ctr value specified by the acoustic consultant, an acoustic glazed coating was incorporated along with glazed-in acoustic trickle vents on the monorail patio doors. These are Technal’s thermally insulated C125 patio doors, which are built in to the floor to achieve a low threshold for easy access, and are SBD compliant.
Also, meeting the requirement for PAS 24, Technal’s Dualframe 75mm Dualsecure doors were installed on the terraces and balconies throughout the New Garden Quarter development, while Technal’s STII doors create automated entrance openers for easy access to each block.
At ground floor level, Technal’s E52 curtain walling was used to create the shopfronts for this mixed-use development, which incorporates retail and leisure facilities as well as services such as a children’s nursery. Likewise, the stairwell facades were installed using E52 in different spans, up to seven floors.
