08 Mar 2024

Creating a Unique & Striking Facade at One City Park

As Bradford’s first Grade A office for 20 years, the landmark One City Park development takes pride of place at the centre of ongoing regeneration in the city. Delivered by Caddick Construction on behalf of Bradford City Council and its development partner, Muse, this stunning development owes its aesthetic to its striking façade, delivered by CCL Facades incorporating a bespoke package of industry-leading Speedpanel solutions.

In January 2023, CCL Facades commenced work alongside main contractor and sister company, Caddick Construction, to deliver the £4.8m façade contract at One City Park. The 25-week programme saw CCL Facades create and install a fully-tested high-performance silicone-glazed curtain walling system to support Glass Fibre Reinforced Concrete (GRC), vertical fins and anodised aluminium cills. The solution also incorporated a bespoke aluminium plant screen that followed the curvature of the building and anodised aluminium soffits to ensure building longevity and weather resistance.

As CCL Facades’ largest project to-date, the sheer volume of components alone makes One City Park one of the most complex and impressive projects delivered by the team. Components included:

●3,100m² Wicona SG Curtain Walling system with acoustic barriers

●2,650m² of double-glazed glass weighing in excess of 280kg

●1,691m of GRC fins, each measuring 3.8m and weighing 145kg

●450m² of Speedpanel A2 spandrel panels

●2,155m of vertical and horizontal fire barriers

●250m² louvers to the ground floor

A complex and unique design

The beauty of One City Park’s façade is in its unique design. Incorporating almost every variation of Speedpanel products, the building façade consists of over 450m² of different Speedpanel solutions - a total of 1400 panels blended together to create the most complex and ambitious solution ever designed using Speedpanel’s A2 insulated spandrel panels. With the majority of the façade consisting of A2 steel and aluminium panels, One City Park is wrapped in 250m² of Tata Steel Prisma faced panels and 48m² of aluminium PPC-faced Speedpanels, 42m² of anodised Speedpanel in a stunning dark blue-grey and 28m² of 100mm thick Speedpanel with a bespoke inner recess and mesh face.

Ensuring building compliance

Ensuring compliance with Building Regulations was central to the design of the façade solution at One City Park. Installation of the Wicona SG Curtain Walling system and double-glazed glass ensured a ‘U’ value of 1.4Wm2k, ensuring a good thermal performance.

The use of industry-leading Speedpanel A2 spandrel panels also guarantees compliance with current fire and thermal building regulations as per the Building Safety Act 2022 and ensured a flexible installation while achieving a striking aesthetic.

An expedited build programme

Delivering to programme in a logistically tight footprint required a meticulous approach to façade installation. As such, materials were stored in an off-site facility and were moved to site on a just-in-time basis. Ensuring that components from different manufacturers were brought together at the correct times was also a key consideration that required careful management to ensure a smooth and uninterrupted installation programme.

Steel panels were installed to accommodate fixings, permitting the installation of stone cladding on the face of the building. This provided the A2-s1-d0 classification for fire safety, enabling the CCL Facades team to seal the building quickly and efficiently, allowing prompt commencement of the fit-out and groundworks and shortening the overall build programme.

A specialist solution sourced locally

Fulfilling a commitment to source locally where possible, the façade at One City Park incorporates many elements that were manufactured, assembled or prepared in the UK. All anodising of aluminium was delivered by United Anodisers in Huddersfield. Likewise, the GRC was fabricated in the UK and the Speedpanel A2 spandrel panels were manufactured internally by Speedpanel in Yorkshire.

All Speedpanels at One City Park include its specially developed structural glazing fixing rebate, which was tailored to accommodate the building’s unique geometry with many concave or convex components, requiring approximately 250 different types of transom. The team was able to create a solution that accommodated the unique design while achieving an excellent panel fit on-site.

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