Case Study: BBC Media City
Peel Media have embarked on a massive project to create a brand new ‘city’ on Manchester’s historic waterfront.
Located at Salford Quays, MediaCity UK will be a vibrant waterside community of workers, residents, students and visitors. The environment will be built around the specific needs of the creative and digital industries and will be the new home of the BBC North upon its completion in 2011.
Execa rainscreen facades, part of CA Group have been involved in Phase 1 of the build, providing materials for Blocks A and B. The 26 storey Block A will host studios on the lower floors for recording shows such as Blue Peter and flats up above. The building has been clad in a combined PlanoWall and Twin-Therm® system which gives it superb air and water tightness for optimum insulation performance.
Before installation the design and assembly of the building underwent extensive testing to CWCT (Centre for Window and Cladding Technology) standards, and comfortably exceeded all required values including air leakage, water penetration and wind resistance safety.
The tests, which took place at the Wintech testing facility in Telford, Shropshire, involved the reproduction of a section of the BBC building, comprising a 3.6m square bay with full Twin-Therm® build up, a centralised window opening, and PlanoWall on the outside mimicking the configuration of the original building design. The section was then exposed to controlled pressures and inundation with water from a turbo-prop aircraft engine and a series of water nozzles, followed by a concentrated high pressure to test strength.
The tests showed that the assembly delivered an exceptionally low air leakage rate of 0.17m³/hour/m² at a pressure of 600 Pascals. It was also tested at up to 2250 Pascals to simulate wind load and monitor structural integrity and monitor deflection. Even at 150% of positive design wind load, the test sample passed with no structural failure.
The combined Twin-Therm® and PlanoWall system is ideal for situations where it is essential to achieve good airtightness whilst not compromising on the aesthetics of a building. The Twin-Therm® system accelerated the build programme as a result of the simplicity of its design and installation, as well its ability to make the building fully watertight prior to the rainscreen being installed, ensuring work on the inside of the building can start whilst the building is still being clad. Twin-Therm® has been used as a backing wall to many other complex facades, such as on The Arc at Bury St Edmonds.
Execa also provided 4,000m² of rainscreen panels for Block B, which will also be used for studios with flats above. The concealed fix system consists of vertically laid panels with no visible fixings to give a high quality flat finish.
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