Light gauge structural steel specialist, voestalpine Metsec plc, has provided its Steel Framing (SFS) products to support leading UK telephone answering service and outsourced switchboard company, Moneypenny, with the development of its new headquarters in Wrexham.
The £15m, 91,000 square feet scheme, which covers two phases, is already underway and is set to be complete in April 2016.
The finished building will provide high-quality, employee-focused spaces and will boast a treehouse, a village pub, as well as an impressive 8,000 square feet atrium with a restaurant and stadium seating. As part of the first phase of the project, main contractor, Pochin Construction, brought Metsec on board to provide SFS continuous and infill walling across all three floors of the new office block; Pochin Construction will be installing the Metsec products once they have arrived onsite.
Metsec’s design team reviewed the structural external wall options initially and produced construction principles in Revit (BIM), utilising specially designed dead load cleats at first floor level to support a continuous external SFS walling system. Infill walling was utilised on the ground floor areas, Metsec was then able to complete the design in Revit and provide a quick turnaround on the drawings, and issue these to Pochin for its review.
Due to the large number of M&E services required for the development, the ground floor slab was not installed at the beginning of the project. Usually, Metsec’s continuous walling solution is installed from the ground floor up, but in this instance it was implemented from the first floor up by using the dead load cleats. The infill walling was then used as a solution to bring together the ground floor and first floor.
Jon Pochin, Managing Director of Pochin Construction, commented: “Moneypenny wanted a high spec, bespoke office build that reflected the growth and technical advancements of its business, which is why all aspects of the build need to be of a high standard. We wanted Metsec to be part of this project, as it has the knowledge and expertise to handle the challenges that the structure of the new building presented. The Metsec team were quickly able to provide us with a solution when working around the slab, which meant that the development of the project was not impacted or delayed.”
Stephen Ginger, Managing Director of Metsec Purlins & Framing, commented: “It’s been great working on a project that is set to deliver a bespoke office space fit to rival those occupied by the likes of Google and Apple, which only further reflects the quality of the building that is being created. Being involved in this project early on meant that we were able to use our expertise to provide a quick turnaround on the design. This, coupled with our great customer service, meant that we were able to accelerate the project."
