The AA100 zone-drained curtain walling system by Kawneer was used in an unusual mix of local authority offices, college skills centre and retail units at the £36 million Tameside One development in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester.
The system was used within rainscreen cladding from the ground to second floors and at the upper floor levels of a courtyard and as a ribbon effect to achieve a punched window design on the external perimeter elevations. This was complemented by Kawneer series 190 heavy-duty entrance doors, as single and double leaves and open-in and open-out variants.
The 15,000m2 building, designed by Ryder Architecture, comprises Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council’s Joint Public Service Centre and an Advanced Skills Centre for Tameside College in two distinct wings, as well as retail units.
In addition to releasing the former 1980s administrative centre from its connection to the Grade II listed Ashton Town Hall, Ryder’s design also retains the façade of the Grade II listed former water board building.
A number of fenestration options were considered for the six storeys. To the upper office and classroom floors the design features full-height floor to ceiling punched windows on the outward-facing elevations and continuous ribbon-slot windows on the internal elevations.
The ribbon curtain wall which gives the punched window effect responds more to the neighbouring historic buildings and the large areas of cladding across the external elevations have been broken down into smaller elements at the stair core locations.
The brickwork base is punched with Kawneer glazing on the east, south and west elevations forming the shop fronts of retail units.
The main building entrances and the deck level are a continuous surface of Kawneer glazing which is used to all publicly accessible areas.
All elements of the building envelope had to achieve pressure test requirement for air permeability of 3cum/h/m2 at 50 Pa.
The Kawneer systems were installed over more than two years (due to Carillion’s demise) by a team of up to 60 from sub-contractor/dealer FK Group for main contractor Robertson Construction which replaced Carillion.
Project architect and Ryder director Mark Clasper said: “The Kawneer curtain walling to the ground floor and first floor provides a transparent plinth to the full perimeter of the building while giving views into key spaces of both the library and the key teaching spaces within the college while also providing large amounts of natural light. It met the performance required with regards to the required U-values.”
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