New Walk Leicester

The new mixed-use development built on the city council’s New Walk site in Leicester is already breathing new life into the city centre, attracting new investment and boosting the local economy. Which is why the building was a finalist in the 2018 Regeneration Project of the Year Award as part of the Leicestershire Property and Construction Awards.

Built on the site of the old council offices, which were demolished in 2015 after the building’s concrete towers were declared structurally unsound, the impressive new building is situated at the end of New Walk, a historic Georgian pedestrian promenade, laid out in 1785.

Designed by Franklin Ellis Architects, the building features 50,000 sq. ft. of high-quality glass-fronted office space, 54 residential apartments, two bars and restaurant units together with new ground floor retail space.

To bring the architect’s vision to life, Senior worked alongside main contractor John Sisk Ltd, for whom Senior is a preferred supplier thanks to an established supplier agreement, and specialist contractor Elite Aluminium Systems Ltd. To maximise the benefits of supply chain collaboration and value engineering, Senior’s experienced team of architectural advisors were on hand throughout the contract to provide full technical and design support.

A key feature of the scheme is the striking facetted facade of the main building which has been created using Senior’s popular SF52 aluminium curtain walling system. Owing to the faceting of the curtain wall frames and the irregular formation of the mullions and transoms, each aluminium bar had to be manually drawn to enable them to be accurately fabricated by Elite Aluminium Systems.

To provide visual consistency and improved thermal performance, Senior’s SF52 system was specified to create the facades of the retail, residential and business elements of the scheme. The retail units also feature Senior’s high-performance thermally-broken aluminium SPW501 aluminium doors, with the residential apartments benefiting from Senior’s SPW600 aluminium windows and doors.

The package specified for the business premises also comprises Senior’s SPW600 aluminium casement windows, SPW501 thermally-broken doors and Senior’s robust SD aluminium doors, which are ideally suited to high-traffic applications.