The development, consisting of 43 tower blocks, is based around the concept of lagoons, so each of the sites celebrates water at the heart of its masterplan, integrated with the design of the clubhouses. The water of the lagoons at the heart of each site cascades down providing the calming effect of falling water with wonderfully illuminated pools and landscape by night.
For this project, we believe for the first time ever, we are constructing a building for which the external façade is totally GRC (excluding the windows and window frames) that is not a cladding system.
This means that the external face of the building is 100% GRC (except windows) which is white in colour and incorporates a sparkle effect. The design architect has, therefore, completely eradicated the use of external formwork (plywood or steel), external working scaffold, render, wall tiles, paint, steel bracketry and joint sealant and in doing so, has created an environmentally friendly façade, which is erected quickly with low maintenance requirements.
The GRC façade units are very significant in size with balconies up to 9.3m long and 2m wide, bay windows up to 5m wide and 2.8m high, as well as other sizeable units, such as box frames and other special feature panels.
The facade and bay window units have precast concrete to provide the structure behind the GRC skin which in turn provides the desired architectural finish.
This also reduces the overall cost of the façade as there is no requirement for any other external finishing work.
The wall units are erected, supported on the structural slab below and are stitched together by the internal insitu walls poured behind the façade. The balconies are aligned together with the internal formwork used for the floor slabs to enable a homogenous floor slab to be poured.
The Main Contractor’s programme is 9 days per 9 towers. Each day, therefore, effectively the facade of one level of each tower block is erected.
Once erected no further work is required to be undertaken to the external facade.