Aluminium curtain walling by leading UK manufacturer Kawneer, has helped an award-winning and cutting-edge combination of industry and academia achieve a BREEAM “Excellent” rating.
The National Automotive Innovation Centre (NAIC), at the University of Warwick, is one of the largest centres of its kind in Europe, and a partnership between WMG (University of Warwick), Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Motors UK and features Kawneer’s AA®110 mullion-drained curtain wall.
The curtain wall system with 65mm sightlines, occasional fritting and in places a translucent inner layer, has been used at triple height on the entrance façade, as ribbon glazing on the ground and third floors, and as roof lights underneath the over-sailing roof.
Delivered between January 2015 and August 2018, using BIM by main contractor Balfour Beatty, the project was the first live construction site to trial BIM-based meeting space. As such, was the success of BIMspace, a next-generation facility camouflaged in a site cabin, it won BIM Initiative of the Year at the Building Awards.
Designed to provide a national focus for expertise in automotive R&D, it accommodates up to 1,000 technologists, academics, designers, students and engineers, with the aim of fostering collaboration to develop and utilise new breakthrough vehicle technology.
The L-shaped building is four storeys high and is 33,000m2, with a full-height atrium and a glulam and steel composite diaphragm roof. The Kawneer glazing, which plays a key role in the project by allowing natural light to penetrate the deep-plan building and providing views in as well as out, was divided into several equally key components.
