Angular Building Reflects College’s Design Brief

Reflecting the campus’ status as an innovator in the West Midlands, the recently completed three-storey steelframed Stourbridge College art and design faculty features dramatic angular glazing to nine elevations.

The systems have been manufactured and installed by East Midlands fabrications specialists Acorn Aluminium, using Senior Architectural Systems’ SCW aluminium curtain walling and SPW300 series aluminium windows.

Built within an area of major urban regeneration the project is significant, with glazing accounting for more than £300,000 of its £12m build costs. However, its remarkable design presented several challenges. Its extreme angular form is an aesthetically appealing and visually arresting piece of architecture, but it meant that each pane across the nine expanses was of a different dimension. And with Acorn’s commitment to adhere rigidly to timed delivery to site, the logistics of manufacture and installation provedpivotal to the remarkable success of a tightly structured build programme.

Senior’s SCW curtain wall is a low rise system, capable of carrying glazing up to 28mm. Each pane of glass is individually inserted into a fully rebated and prepared opening. Gasket or foam tape seals to the inside create a bond between the glass and the main structure.

Its mullions and transoms are of a channel and plate construction allowing it to be fabricated into ladders for quicker assembly on site – key qualities in its specification at Stourbridge College, and making it an economical alternative to stick system curtain walls.

The system is compartmentally drained and has been fully weather tested to the requirements of BS6375 and meets the thermal requirements of Approved Document L.

Senior’s SPW300 window range is a 51mm thermally broken system using polyamide strips for improved insulation and is designed to be fully compatible with the SCW curtain wall system. It will accommodate glazing from 4mm single glazing to 28mm double glazed units.

Now occupied, the 1,000 pupil campus has dramatically altered the Brierley Hill skyline. It is sited on the old Brier School site in Kingswinford, and houses the college’s art and design, textiles, fashion, graphics, illustration and digital media facilities. Lynette Cutting, Principal at Stourbridge College said: “The building has been beautifully designed to maximise potential for our students.”