The Paragon

CHALLENGE

Eight separate buildings within a 4.7 acre site. The residential buildings had to meet Thames Valley University's needs of up to 1,000 rooms for nursing and midwifery students delivered by Sept 2006, whilst the teaching accommodation will become the new home for the University’s Faculty of Health and Human Sciences – the largest healthcare facility in the UK.

A 15 storey tower block, triangular in shape required a combination of glazed and ceramic cladding whilst terracotta cladding was requested for the other accommodation blocks. A rainscreen cladding system was requested to ensure adequate protection against rain penetration and to provide the building with excellent thermal insulation.

The project was to cause minimal disruption to the local area, whilst health and safety was key due to the sites prominence to the M4 motorway.

SOLUTION

Knauf Insulation supplied 2,100 m² of 115mm Rocksilk RainScreen Slab to the outside of the development, as part of the rainscreen cladding system.

The lightweight and rigid properties of Rocksilk RainScreen Slab allows ease of fixing to the exterior wall while the water repellent nature of the product helps to defend the buildings structure against rain penetration.

Rainscreen cladding solutions can also offer savings on building insurance - thanks to their fire protection properties – and energy bills by creating a complete insulation envelope around the structure.

What’s more, individual packs of Rocksilk RainScreen Slabs are compression packed together in Knauf Insulation’s innovative packaging method, Supakube, which uses advanced compression technology and strong packaging materials ensuring the product is easy to transport and store, causing minimal disruption on site and the surrounding area.

Andrew Tichy, Divisional Specification Manager at Knauf Insulation, said: “Rocksilk RainScreen Slab is a very popular product within our Rocksilk range as it provides great thermal performance, noise absorption and is fire safe, all important considerations on urban, high rise developments. Contractors also enjoy working with the product as it’s easy to fit around the cladding support brackets and there’s no need to tape the insulation joints.”