Best Practice Awards 2010 - Best Project shortlist

The British Precast Best Project award is aimed at showcasing outstanding projects that were completed in 2009 and for which member supplied products were used and contributed to the project's success.

Sponsored by Grace Construction Products

WINNER

Hanson UK - Kimberley Commercial Centre, Stewartby, Befordshire     
Hanson UK has received a BREEAM excellent rating for its commercial centre building at the former brick works in Bedfordshire.

The 63,500 square foot development at Stewartby – codenamed Project Kimberley during the construction phase - is built on a brownfield site, has two wings of office space linked by a central hub and is designed to be passive. It is naturally ventilated, demonstrating the effectiveness of masonry construction in reducing energy consumption. It also incorporates low carbon techniques such as increased insulation and thermal mass through the exposed concrete prevalent throughout the building as well as other sustainable techniques such as SUDS and rainwater harvesting.

In addition to the extensive use of Hanson bricks, aggregate blocks and aircrete blocks, the building features the company’s precast concrete products, aggregate and asphalt. The car park also uses Hanson Formpave’s Aquaflow permeable paving system with a ground source heat pump to harvest rainwater and provide a sustainable heating and cooling system for the building.

COMMENDATION

Buchan Concrete Solutions - John Perryn Primary School, London     

John Perryn Primary School in the London Borough of Ealing was constructed under the Governments Primary Capital Programme initiative, designed to improve the standard of the country’s primary schools. The project has been given ‘Pathfinder’ status, offering a great opportunity for both the school and the Borough.

The design of the school required flexibility and this has been facilitated by Buchan through the use of precast portal frames for the internal partition walls. These were 6.5 metres long and some 3.6 metres in height, being delivered and installed as a single unit. Running at right angles to the main corridor at ground and first floor level, the portal frames, along with the 150mm thick outside walls and 180mm thick cross walls, carry the hollowcore floor units.

The precast concrete crosswall system allowed for a rapid construction programme of just 35 on-site working days for the precast frame.

COMMENDATION

CPM Group - Tregaron Flood Alleviation Scheme, Ceredigion     

Tregaron Flood Alleviation Scheme was commissioned in 2005 by Environment Agency Wales to protect the market town of Tregaron (in the Afon Teifi SAC and SSSI) from flooding. The Afon Brennig runs through Tregaron town centre and puts over 100 residential and commercial properties at risk. The last significant flood in 1987 resulted in extensive damage to these shops and properties. Environment Agency, Arup, CPM and Morrison Construction worked closely on the scheme to provide 1 in 100 year flood protection to the town and improve the environment for wildlife along the stretch of river.

540 sq. m. of CPM's innovative modular Redi- Rock retaining wall system was used to replace existing unserviceable river boundary walls. This eliminated the use of concrete grout within the river channel during wall construction – minimizing the risk of pollution and making it possible to complete construction within the narrow timeframe.

COMMENDATION

Evans Concrete Products - Dream     

Dream, a 22 metre high sculpture fabricated entirely from precast concrete completed in May 2009, is a highly prestigious piece of public art for St.Helens. It was designed by world renowned artist, Jaume Plensa, and takes the form of a head of a girl with her eyes closed, seemingly in a dream-like state. It stands on the former Sutton Manor Colliery in St.Helens, overlooking the M62, and is a landmark feature for the North West, symbolising regeneration in the region.

Using specialist moulds, Evans cast the 54 unique precast concrete segments utilising a unique Spanish Dolomite mix designed to give a smooth glowing white finish, in contrast to the black coal below. The units ranging from 5 – 10 Tons in weight were manufactured at Evans main site, at Pye Bridge (Derbyshire), with a dedicated team hand finishing each independent unit.

Jaume Plensa was awarded a special Creativity in Concrete Award by British Precast for his work on Dream and he also won the Marsh award for Public Sculpture 2009.

COMMENDATION

J&P Building Systems - Dream     

Dream comprises of 13 layers, each 1.5m high, and consisting of four segments, plus a capping piece, giving 54 pieces in total. In order to maintain structural integrity and to resist the considerable wind loadings, it was necessary to connect together all the elements to resist a load of 200 kN per joint.

J&P Building Systems were called in early 2008, whilst the project was still at the early planning stage. For the vertical joints, the final choice was Pfeifer VS Plus wire loops, with a total of 12 interlocking loops in each joint. For the horizontal joints, Pfeifer wall shoes were chosen, with two shoes in each joint.

This groundbreaking work demonstrated best practice in connections technology, detailing and image data manipulation. It enabled the project to be assembled with accuracy and confidence, where traditional methods would almost certainly have lead to miss-alignment and costly reworking.

COMMENDATION

Explore Manufacturing - Corsham Redevelopment     

The Corsham re-development PFI project involves the rationalisation and development of MOD estates at Corsham.

The new facilities, including offices, living accomadation and sport amenities, will be laid out within an enhanced landscaped setting with careful consideration of existing wildlife and ecology. The buildings have been designed and constructed to meet the highest standard of energy efficiency and sustainability, having achieved a BREEAM excellent rating.
The superstructures for both the office and single living accommodation were converted from its original insitu concrete concept to a hybrid solution. The hybrid solution incorporated precast concrete columns, lattice floors, twinwall, stairs and external composite cladding panels, with sandwich external cladding panels featuring reconstituted stone.

COMMENDATION

Trent Concrete - Nottingham Contemporary     
Nottingham's new art gallery stands on the corner of Weekday Cross at the boundary of the city centre and the historic lace market area. It is truly a unique structure, which has already proven to be a new landmark for the city and demonstrates the versatility, flexibility and adaptability of precast concrete in all respects, particularly shapes, colours, sizes, textures and finishes.

The cast pattern on the precast panels was taken from a specific example of Nottingham lace, which itself was a machine made copy of a French handmade oringial.The lace was scanned, and then scaled, tiling and contrast of the two dimensional image was worked. this image was the converted into a 3D description which was used to drive a milling machine that produced a full size positive in MDF which was then used to make latex moulds. Four, 14 metre long latex moulds were used to cast all of the green concave precast elements on the building.

COMMENDATION

Techrete UK - Regents Place     
Regents Place is a mixed-use development at Osnaburgh Street consisting of two office buildings, providing 366,000 sq.ft of Grade AA lettable office space over 9/10 storeys. At ground level there are retail units, a local theatre and a multi-faith centre spread between each of the buildings. The site is particularly sensitive as it is located adjacent to the conservation area at Regent's Parkland provides a backdrop to several listed buildings, the most significant of which id Holy Trinity Church.

The Buildings are clad with retarded finish white architectural precast and with a red sandstone above one ground floor and red granite at ground floor onto precast.