As we move towards the last quarter of the year we are deep into the design process of our final major project of 2015 with Baxall Construction Ltd – Knights Park School. This will be moving into the production stage shortly with the project being handed over to our German counterparts at Streif GmbH to manufacture the German timber frame, (check out our new you tube video on our website and you tube playlist of the German factory and the full off site manufacturing process all the way until the completed closed panel timber frame is loaded onto the lorry for delivery – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23RGdJgSrIg ). The Knights Park project is then due to hit site in November for a last push to complete the erection of the school before the winter break.
Once again the fabric of the building will be based around the tried and tested wall option of 60mm external insulation combined with a 160mm thick German timber frame fully filled with mineral wool insulation to hit a U-value of approx. 0.17W/m2K, giving the perfect balance of cost and efficiency. As Knights Park is a two storey school building this throws up other issues relating to fireproofing of the walls and so the external timber wall panels and all structural internal walls to the ground floor will be double boarded in Gypsum Rigidur H fibreboard to ensure a full 1 hr protection is provided.
Knights Park School has been designed by the architect with three different external finishes, cavity brickwork and two types of fibre cement tiles (cladding). This highlights the flexibility of the Streif timber frame panelling system to accept almost any external finish.
A number of external finishes such as timber cladding can be factory fixed to the closed panel timber frame system which means less waste, precision finish and improved efficiency of operatives all due to the factory conditions which is another key benefit of the off site manufacturing process and ensures that where buildings are being assessed under BREEAM sustainability additional credits can be achieved under the appropriate sections helping your building to achieve the more onerous targets of today’s regulations and planning requirements.
Knights Park has a large double height hall with raised roofing section over to support a large photovoltaic array, this is all to be supported by a number of glulam beams to ensure the structural integrity of the building. So with renewable energy being incorporated into the design alongside the low energy and sustainable closed panel timber frame building system provided by Streif, Knights Park has the potential to be a real eco building.
We are all eager to see this project through to the end as we feel it will be a real stand out building once completed with our usual sharp finish and attention to detail which comes as standard with all Streif builds ensuring this is the case.
