Refurb Projects - November 2018

PROJECTS
WRW chooses incentive TEC for eco housing development
National construction
business WRW has chosen
Incentive Tec, part of
Incentive FM Group, to
provide a range of services at a new
eco-friendly housing development in
Bruton, Somerset. Under the terms
of the deal, Incentive Tec will be
responsible for the design and
installation of all the mechanical
and electrical (M&E) aspects of the
accommodation.
Set in a natural amphitheatre
overlooking the market town, Cubis
Bruton has 56 contemporary three
and four-bedroom homes that are
designed to be energy efficient and
highly sustainable both inside and
outside. Incentive Tec will work
closely with WRW to offer early
purchasers a number of bespoke
options. The project is due to be
completed within 12 months and
Incentive Tec will then be
responsible for ongoing
maintenance.
Jon Williams, Managing Director
at WRW, said: “This is an exciting
development which showcases our
ability to deliver the latest
innovations in energy efficiency and
sustainability. We are confident in
Incentive Tec’s ability to support us
on this project as they have on other
developments, where they delivered
consistently high standards.”
STO provides perfect acoustic solution for
major garden museum project
The need for a proven acoustic
solution, and a high ambition
for the aesthetics, has led to
an acoustic system from Sto
being specified for a £7.5 million
museum redevelopment project in
London. The StoSilent Distance
system has been installed in the
Garden Museum, which is Britain's
only museum covering the art,
history and design of gardens,
located at the Church of St Maryat-Lambeth.
“We specified the StoSilent
Distance system for a number of
reasons,” explains Alun Jones of Dow
Jones Architects. “The building work
involved the creation of a cluster of
copper-clad pavilions around a
cloistered garden area. These house
two new educational spaces and a
cafeteria, and they are connected by
a number of covered walkways.
These spaces feature concrete floors
and floor-to-ceiling glazing, so in
order to achieve an acoustic
environment with a reverberation
time of less than 0.8 seconds we
used a Sto seamless acoustic ceiling.
Having used the Sto solution on a
previous project we were confident
that it would be perfect for the
museum, and Sto worked closely
with us to create a balanced
acoustic system which would satisfy
all the different requirements.”
The StoSilent Distance system
provides a modern, clean, monolithic
alternative to the standard but
limited design options associated
with exposed grid and tile systems,
or boards with multi-facetted holes
or slots. It provides positive,
balanced acoustics within buildings,
helping architects and designers
achieve clean and uncluttered lines.
It is ideal for situations where, as
with the Garden Museum, these
surfaces must be suspended to
accommodate services, and where
the ceilings were being used as
negative plenums for air extraction
and movement.
The StoSilent Distance system
utilises its own Sto SC400 metal
framework, and StoSilent Distance
110 boards. The boards are
manufactured from 96% recycled
glass and can be integrated with
lighting, grills and other M&E
considerations. StoSilent boards are
permeable, and have a honeycomblike
structure which allows noise and
sound to dissipate through a void
space and so balance the acoustic
environment.
StoSilent Distance is a
lightweight system, and unlike
exposed grid and soft tile
alternatives, the boards will not sag
or delaminate. It can be used to
create many different design
features, including seamless, inclined
planes or curves, or sharp and
consistent joints. The benefit to the
architects and end user is that the
system can also be repaired and refurbished
throughout the lifetime of
the building without greatly
negating the value of the acoustics,
wherever the system has been
installed.
For aesthetic reasons, the
architects were also keen to use the
same monolithic ceiling throughout
each of the new areas at the
Museum, and wanted this to feature
a spray-applied finish with a finelytextured
surface. “The StoSilent
Décor M finish was the perfect
solution for this,” adds Sto’s
Technical Consultant for Acoustics,
Mike Wallace. “It creates a soundpermeable
decorative coating which
can be tinted to match a wide range
of shades from the StoColor system,
and RAL colours can also be
achieved making it a very versatile
Gary Smith, Pre-Construction
Director at Incentive Tec, said: “Our
ability to complete major projects on
time and to budget continues to be
a significant reason behind our
growth and ongoing success. Our
relationship with WRW is going from
strength to strength based on
mutual respect and shared values.”
Web: wrw.co.uk/
solution.”
“As there were a number of
varying roof spaces included in the
different areas, there was not one
standard installation approach that
would suit them all,” adds Lucien
Ionce of Intercoustic, an authorized
Sto acoustic installer. “Fortunately,
the StoSilent Distance system is
extremely flexible in terms of
installation, and this gave us plenty
of freedom to meet the various dayto-day
challenges which arose
during the installation process.”
The museum is housed in the
Church of St Mary-at-Lambeth, next
to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s
palace, alongside the River Thames.
After being disused for many years,
the church was saved from
demolition in 1977, after which it
was converted into the UK’s first
museum dedicated to the history of
gardening.
www.sto.co.uk/en/home
REFURBISHMENT PROJECTS, NOVEMBER 2018 29