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Guttercrest

goes back to school

The Hammersmith Academy in London is a Guttercrest Limited was involved from the conception
co-educational school and 6th form specialising stage of this building, working closely with the
in creative and digital media and information architects to design and engineer the complex
technology. The state-of-the-art four storey building bespoke aluminium cladding to the projecting eaves
boasts facilities including a theatre, sports hall, library, blades. Guttercrest devised a wraparound cladding
fitness suite and digital editing and IT suites. solution, providing the eaves with bold symmetrical
lines around the whole building and giving it an
The site chosen for the Academy was a challenging imposing feature.
one as there was very limited external space other
than a multi-use games area. Thus the Academy Guttercrest also designed and manufactured the
accommodation had to be housed on four floors – aluminium rectangular column casings which are all
A very modern makeover the sports hall is on the second – and the curriculum around the building, together with all the aluminium
had to be designed in such a way to offset any copings and the aluminium fascia soffits to high-
shortcomings as a result of the lack of external level and walkway soffits; all of which were polyester
recreation space. powder coated to specification.
In 2150 BC bluestones from the Preseli Mountains Solutions. The unique perforations of the ZCM
in South Wales were transported to the site of panels were enabled by world-leading cutting and The architect was BHM Architects Limited and the
Stonehenge in west Amesbury near Salisbury nearly routing machines; these combine with the foremost main contractor was Wates Construction.
240 miles away. It is thought these 82 stones, some design and manufacturing software to produce all of
weighing four tonnes each, were dragged on rollers Euroclad’s products that utilise composite materials,
and sledges and carried on rafts along the south such as rainscreens, canopies and bullnoses.
coast of Wales and up the rivers Avon and Frome,
before being dragged overland again to the site we Despite its low-key aesthetic, this building operates
now know as Stonehenge. More than 4,000 years extremely well and the Euroclad-manufactured
later Euroclad products made a very similar journey canopy creates an attractive transition from outside
from South Wales to Wiltshire for installation on the to in, dappling light through its routed perforations.
new visitor centre constructed by English Heritage - The ZCM canopy and walls act not only to contribute
albeit this time it was via the M4 motorway. to the overall effect of the building’s architecture but
also to achieve specific elements of the design.
The new visitor centre at Stonehenge thankfully did
not take quite as long to construct as the ancient Stonehenge is one of the wonders of the world and
stone monument itself. In fact, the fast track the best-known prehistoric monument in Europe.
installation offered by Euroclad products helped The new world-class visitor centre has transformed
achieve the impressive design of the new building the visitor experience, providing museum-quality
within a challenging timeframe. permanent and temporary exhibitions, plus a
spacious shop and café.
The visitor centre is 1.5 miles west of the stone
circle and its design combines modest aesthetics Stonehenge and Avebury became a World Heritage
with excellent functionality in order to satisfy English Site (WHS) in 1986 for their outstanding prehistoric
Heritage’s long-held desire to create a building with monuments which date from 3700 to 1600 BC.
as little visual impact on the site as possible. At Stonehenge, the unique lintelled stone circle is
surrounded by a landscape containing more than
Zinc composite material (ZCM) was used to 350 burial mounds and major prehistoric monuments
manufacture the soffits of the large canopy on the such as the Stonehenge Avenue, the Cursus,
new environmentally sensitive visitor centre, with the Woodhenge and Durrington Walls.
same material used to clad the interior and exterior
walls; all of which were installed by Massey Cladding Architect: Denton Corker Marshall

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