August 2020

Project Focus
A GREAT MIX FOR KEY PROJECT
Shackerley’s SureClad brings quality and variety to Great Central Square Leicester.
Great Central Square in Leicester is a
mixed used scheme constructed by
Morgan Sindall, comprising two hotels,
prestigious office accommodation and a leisure
destination within the refurbished former station
building.
Shackerely’s SureClad Ceramic Granite ventilated
façade system enabled the project’s developer,
Charles Street Buildings, to specify various
colourways and finishes from a single supplier.
Not only did this balance synergy with
differentiation, it also offered project planning
and co-ordination advantages, buildability
benefits and confidence in a façade that will
stand the test of time.
Complementary Hotels
Great Central Square’s two hotels will be
operated by Accor. The 100-room Adagio Apart
Hotel sits side by side with a 152-room Novotel,
and the choice of Shackerley’s SureClad Ceramic
Granite as the façade system helps to
differentiate the two hotels while offering
consistency of quality and materiality.
The design for both hotel buildings was delivered
by architects, Leach Rhodes Walker. Gary Darby
from Leach Rhodes Walker explained: “With its
durability and low maintenance credentials,
Shackerley’s SureClad system was the ideal
response to the brief and the variety of
colourways and finishes within the range gave us
plenty of scope to select panels to differentiate
the two buildings while benefitting from a
streamlined supply chain.”
Meticulous specification
Shackerley’s SureClad Ceramic Granite system
was specified in a mid-grey ‘Riven’ colourway
with a natural finish for the Novotel building and
a ‘Travertine’ honed beige colourway for the
Adagio Apart hotel. Alongside visual impact, the
system offered buildability
advantages, enabling a lighter
structural frame for the
building. It also answered
local planning
requirements for a highquality
building for such a
prominent location, with
appropriate finishes to
complement the local built
environment.
Gretta Murphy, from Charles Street Buildings,
explained: “We were looking for a façade system
that articulated quality but also answered our
cost requirements for the project. Leach Rhodes
Walker suggested a number of options and we
invested time in researching the product. We
were also looking for quality and consistency of
product and the level of service and technical
support the supplier could offer us.”
As part of the specification process, Shackerley
provided fully-mounted samples to enable the
client and project team to experience the
SureClad system in combination with the
company’s Queens Award winning Access
support system. The project team also visited
Shackerley’s ISO 9001 accredited manufacturing
facility in Lancashire.
Richard Frape, Project Director at Morgan Sindall,
commented: “Shackerley provided support in
design meetings and assistance with the supply
chain. We investigated other systems but felt that
Shackerley’s SureClad façade system offered us
the benefits of ready-to-install panels, prefabricated
at the supplier’s own factory in
Lancashire, which were critical to the project.”
Technical support
The large-format, slim profile SureClad Ceramic
Granite panels from Shackerley provided an ideal
façade build-up for the lightweight hotel structures.
Left: Great Central Square Leicester.
The fenestration scheme adds
to the impact of the
elevations with elongated
windows that span
multiple levels and the
SureClad panels have been
used to complement this
design feature, with vertical
orientation to deliver both contrast
and synergy.
The SureClad system also enabled increased
flexibility of programming for the construction
team. As Richard Frape explained: “The SureClad
Access installation system allowed us to install
the panels non-sequentially. This was particularly
helpful in regards to the groundworks, because
the Access system meant we could leave the
buildings’ ground floor panels to be installed
last.”
Joined-up approach
For the office development, Shackerley’s Lunar
SureClad Ceramic Granite colourway, a pale grey
with a mid-grey fleck, was used in a pearl finish,
in combination with natural finish ‘Antigua’
red/brown panels.
Gretta Murphy added: “Rationalising the supply
chain not only helps to manage costs on a large
project like this, but also helps with practical
considerations, like co-ordination of deliveries to
site. Working with Shackerley meant that we
could bring different colour palette and textural
elements to the varied buildings within the
development, while maintaining consistent
quality and technical support.”
Contact Shackerley
01257 273114
www.shackerley.com
46 TC AUGUST 2020