Fletcher House - Oxford Science Park, UK
Designed by Hamiltons Architects a London practice with a long background in the commercial sector www.hamiltons-london.com
Aliva UK supplied 800sqm of Aliva Ceramic backing structure behind this Dark Blue Buchtal Ceramic Tile Facade on either end of the building. The dimensions of the building were such that a bespoke 1200x700mm tile would fit in almost every area except the corners. The Buchtal KerAion tile was very thin; only 8mm nominal and wind load calculations determined that 8 fixing points were required per tile above 8 metres rather than the normal 4. Rather than the normal kiel undercut anchors often used, buchtal’s own Quadro fixings were sinter fused onto the back of the tile in the factory and our clamps were then fitted directly onto these on site. The Aliva Ceramic backing structure is flexible enough to easily accommodated 8 clamps per tile and is in fact flexible enough to work with almost any size tile.
LMC Ltd installed the facade for Dane Ltd and were very pleased with the flexibility of the Aliva Ceramic backing structure which they had used on other occasions previously.
Aliva Ceramic Backing Structure has built in tolerance to work within the building tolerances and allow a perpendicular facade no matter how imprecise the building structure is behind. L Shaped brackets are supplied from 40 to 260mm as standard in increments of 20mm, so almost any cladding zone can be achieved. Most brackets have a tolerance of +/- 20mm as standard when used with our 60x40x2.2mm L profile.
Our 6m horizontal rail is supplied pre slotted in the factory to allow for expansion and movement on site, meaning that site operatives don’t need to cut the rail down in length, nor create their own slots on site. The rail can be supplied in mill finish aluminium or black finish as depending on joint size and tile colour you may or may not see the rail through the open 8mm joints.
Choosing an 8mm horizontal joint allows tiles to be replaced should there be the need.
The Quadro fastenings were sinter fused onto the tiles at the factory. On site LMC then secured one of 2 different clamps, an adjustable or a fixed clamp. Adjustable clamps hung on the upper horizontal rail allow +/- 5mm vertical adjustment in the tile. On either side of one of the adjustable clamps blocks are installed to prevent the tile moving along the rail.
The client and architects are delighted with the appearance of the facade, the Aliva Ceramic backing structure does an excellent job in perfectly aligning all the tiles and giving a clean crisp facade.
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