The Barts Square masterplan, developed by Sheppard Robson for Helical, establishes a new urban mixed-use quarter in the heart of the City of London.
Barts Square Phase 3 is a residential development situated in London EC1. It is a single concrete structure that is subdivided into 3 residential blocks (H, JK & L) each with specific façade types.
Description
An offsite-manufactured facade solution intended to incorporate the high-quality brick, natural stone and reconstituted stone ‘lace faience’ facing materials to produce an exceptional finished detail was required to accelerate construction while keeping quality at very high standards.
Challenge
Having previously delivered the earlier phases of the development in a more traditional manner, the original traditional handset masonry design intent was incorporated into a bespoke face design, similar to a unitised curtain wall. While the design is not a standard system, it does take its form and principles from all the good practice developed within local standard BS 8297.
This allowed significant improvements in production, detailing quality, and logistics efficiency. The end result was an extremely robust unitized system which was later confirmed by a suite of offsite CWCT sequence B testing, in advance of full production.
Application
The use of Ductal® Archistructure instead of traditional reinforced concrete allowed for weight and material savings while allowing the design to remain well within the original handset facade’s dead load allowance and shortening the overall construction schedule significantly.