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Outdoor Centre's speedy extension |
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9 Oct 2014, 7:45 PM
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The walls and roof of a new dormitory building and activity centre at the Laches Wood Outdoor Education Centre near Wolverhampton have been erected in a matter of weeks using new technology.
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Laches Wood opened over 55 years ago and in 2013 came under the remit of Entrust, a joint venture between Staffordshire County Council and Capita, tasked with making the Centre self-sufficient. The new dormitory offers a further 68 beds, whilst the activity centre, dubbed ‘The Den’, features top class climbing and caving facilities.
To limit the impact on guests and meet the funding criteria, both buildings needed to be completed in just six months. This was a key driver behind the specification of the Kingspan TEK® Building System. The System comprises structural insulated panels which were factory cut to the project’s individual plans by SIPs@Clays LLP. This bespoke design service, featured on all Kingspan TEK® projects, ensured a straightforward, fast-track installation with minimal on-site adjustments and waste.
2,100 m2 of the panels were installed in just three and a half weeks for the walls and roof of the dormitory, with a further 1000 m2 erected in a fortnight for The Den. The building shells were quickly made watertight, allowing follow on trades to begin work much earlier than would have been possible with a traditional masonry construction.
Russell Morris from Capita Symonds commented: “In addition to its dry, pre-fabricated construction, we also specified the Building System as its lightweight panels greatly reduced the size and cost of the foundations. The System also supports a wide range of wood cladding options and we chose a Western Red Cedar which is naturally resistant to decay and seasons to a silver grey appearance in areas with low pollution.”
The panels feature a high performance insulated core, allowing them to achieve wall and roof U-values of 0.21 W/m2.K and below, whilst their Oriented Strand Board type 3 facing and unique proprietary jointing system can help deliver air leakage levels as good as 1m3/hour/m2 at 50 Pa.
A number of other energy saving features have also been included as part of the buildings, these include low energy lighting, movement sensors and a mechanical ventilation heat recovery system in the wash rooms which uses the warmth generated through the use of showers to assist in the heating of the dormitory building.
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