Leicester’s latest newly built school has been creatively designed and fitted with a suite of aluminium doors, windows and curtain wall from Senior Architectural Systems’ high performance ranges, which collectively account for around 60% of the building’s facade.

Working alongside designer ADP Architects and main contractor Miller Construction, leading fabricator Acorn Aluminium Limited has installed Senior’s SCW curtain wall, SPW300 suite of windows, and SD commercial door system at Soar Valley College. The school has been built by Miller as part of the Building Schools for the Future programme.

The new home of Soar Valley School is simple and functional, yet the impressive result is a reflection of the school’s aim to inspire. The entrance foyer, central hall and learning resource area punctuate the front face of the building, whilst the gently curving wings feature colour threads through all the elevations, reflecting the rich and diverse community served by the school.

Soar Valley College is one of three schools projects won by Acorn Aluminium, working in association with Miller Construction under its BSF contract. Collectively valued at £2.5m, Acorn has also installed Senior Architectural’s systems at the newly built Judge Meadows College and Beaumont Leys School. The developments have transformed the educational environment for students in the city.

“With such large spans of glass incorporated within the façade, the fabrication and installation process of the curtain wall had to be precise,” said Acorn’s managing director Martyn Harrison. “The challenge around the project was ensuring the interface between curtain wall and the cladding on the building was accurate and that it would contribute to the overall environmental and performance objectives set by the architects.”

Whilst the school took around two years to complete, Acorn worked within a 20 week schedule to manufacture the systems at their headquarters in Nottingham and transport the results to the site close to the city centre.

“Our manufacturing and delivery planning had to be robust,” added Martyn. “As part of our contract we committed to provide and install the system to a stringent timetable, and this was met in full.”

The building has received a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating and ADP’s landscape design at Soar Valley College was nominated in the category for ‘Most Inspirational Use of Outside Space’ at the Excellence in BSF awards.

Martyn Harrison was pleased with the results. “It was good to be involved in a project like this, and to see the excitement amongst its users as the plans came to life,” he said.

“As well as simply providing more modern facilities for users of the school, the design also has a certain wow factor, and my colleagues and I are very proud to have been involved in the project.”

Working for main contractor J F Finnegan of Sheffield, aluminium systems specialists Alusec UK Ltd of Rotherham has installed Senior Architectural Systems’ high-performance window and curtain wall solutions at Sheffield’s latest city centre hotel.

The eight-storey, 161-bed `next generation’ Holiday Inn Express hotel – the first of its kind in any major UK city – is conveniently situated within a few minutes’ walk of Sheffield City Centre and overlooks the River Don.

Completed a month ahead of schedule, the £10m landmark building on Blonk Street features almost 200 windows fabricated from Senior’s SPW600 75mm thermally-broken internally-beaded system, selected for its impressive BS6375 performance results for air permeability, water tightness and wind resistance.

Similarly, Senior’s SMR900 series curtain wall was specified for the ground floor, designed to complement the building’s high weather resistance and thermal performance.

SMR900 is a hollow box construction. The mullions are designed to run through for optimum strength and the transoms are easily front-loaded on site using a unique jointing method. Prior to delivery to Alusec, the window and curtain wall profiles were powder coated at Senior Architectural System’s state-of-the-art facility in Doncaster, which provides fabricators with a cost-effective, highly efficient and time-sensitive turnaround service.

“With around 800 linear metres of glazing valued at more than £300,000, the window and curtain wall fabrication and installation was a major project,” said Alusec director John Armitage. “We have used Senior’s systems extensively on projects ranging from office complexes to multi-million pound contracts and were confident of our specification for this prestigious development.”

The `limited-service’ hotel is fitted out to a higher specification than a standard Holiday Inn Express and features a spacious ground floor, along with redesigned bathrooms and bedrooms built around the group’s latest ergonomic layouts.

One of the latest assets in Hilton’s portfolio of contemporary hotels, situated close to Heathrow Airport’s new £4.3bn Terminal 5 building, has been fitted with around 600 windows and more than 40 separate curtain wall screens from Senior Architectural Systems’ high performance aluminium ranges.

The architect’s brief for a predominantly glass face means that hotel users benefit from an ambience of light and space. However, given that glass is not as acoustically efficient as constructed walls – and that A380 airbuses flying overhead are the ultimate test – fabricators Elite Aluminium Systems recognised their first job would be to research ways in which high acoustic attenuation could be met.

Elite’s innovative solution was to use Senior’s SPW600 75mm deep thermally broken casement system, backed by Senior’s single-glazed STW200 full height side hung windows to achieve maximum noise isolation from aircraft flying directly overhead.

Voids between the two systems are set at either 270mm or 500mm, depending on location within the building. High performance 28.8mm acoustic laminated double glazed units have been installed. A perimeter of EPDM membrane seals the external window to the internal structure to ensure an airtight installation.