Curtain walling, windows and doors from architectural aluminium systems supplier Kawneer have helped Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council consolidate operations, save ratepayers £250,000 a year and achieve a “very good” BREEAM rating.

The council’s new offices and service response centre on a five-hectare site at Baglan Energy Park in Port Talbot saw Kawneer’s AA®100 zone-drained vertical and mullion-drained sloped curtain walling, AA®601 top-hung casement windows, AA®605 rebated emergency escape doors and 190 heavy duty commercial entrance doors installed by approved sub-contractor AB Glass (Doors & Windows).

Designed by Holder Mathias Architects, the new buildings have enabled the council to close several outdated and in some cases, poorly located buildings across the borough and bring all of its staff together in contemporary, open plan, flexible accommodation that benefits from modern ICT.

“The Quays” actually comprises two buildings – one for general office accommodation that includes the CCTV control suite for the county borough and central computer servers, as well as various workshops, stores, ancillary offices and vehicle depots (stores and washing/fuelling stations) that have been assembled together in the service response centre.

The former, which rises to three storeys with a full-height, sloping curtain walled atrium at the main entrance reception that joins the two parallel, overlapping wings, uses Kawneer’s curtain walling, windows and doors throughout.

A key decision was to set the width of the floor plate at a relatively narrow 13.5 metres to maximise natural daylight and natural ventilation. The building was then orientated on a broadly east/west axis so the wide elevations were facing north/south to optimise solar shading.

The latter rises from a single-storey “industrial unit” with simple clad walls, a large, low-pitched roof and sectional doors for vehicle access, through separating strips of louvres and doors to two storeys where it emulates the shape and appearance of the main office building but houses amenities for staff such as mechanics and drivers on the ground floor and meeting rooms/reception on the first floor. This uses Kawneer’s curtain walling on the main elevation.

Built on piled foundations and over 13 months by main contractor Interserve Project Services, the offices are steel frame with clear-span pre-cast concrete planks to minimise internal columns and maximise clear floor plates to give flexible accommodation. The service response centre is steel portal frame.

Gareth Nutt, head of property and regeneration, said: “The council needed to consolidate various facilities to improve efficiency and replaces several offices and depots which were coming to the end of their leases or had become unsuitable for other reasons. The most pressing need was to replace the major office accommodation at Penllergaer, Swansea, which had to be handed back to its owners. The new accommodation had to be functional and economic while making a positive contribution to the local built environment and meeting sustainability targets.”

Project architect Julian Morgan said: “The architectural expression of the elevations is directly related to the choice of materials and the main structural grid spacing of 7.5 metres. The elevations are organised generally into a series of frames comprising insulated metal cladding panels that enclose the curtain walling panels.

“To make the composition more dynamic and increase the presence of the building in sculptural terms, we considered the way the different blocks of the building related to each other and introduced some simple angular forms to put an emphasis or accent on certain parts.

“Both of the wedge-shaped blocks are coloured differently to the main background elements and provide interest to the form of the building without compromising the efficiency of the plan or the structure. They are separated from the adjacent parts by glazed strips. The Kawneer-glazed elements are a key part of the architectural expression.

“A BREEAM rating of very good was required as part of the brief, and was achieved. To meet the Building Regulations, an air tightness test was conducted towards completion, hence all material interfaces between the building envelope had to be considered during the design process.”

Email: tracy@tlcpr.co.uk