White Rose Park – ABC Building Envelope Refurbishment
Originally built in the mid 1980’s as the Systime Computer factory the ABC building is very much a product of its time with its mirror glass sloping facades and monolithic form. Over the years it has become a Leeds landmark. The building was later converted to office use and was acquired by Munroe K some 30 years ago. During this period the building has had various internal refits including phased refurbishment in 2005 when O2 consolidated their Leeds operation into one building.
The building is currently under-going its next phase of refurbishment with the office suites being reconfigured to suit the next generation of office tenants. In line with these works the external façade is being refreshed and Think Architecture have been working with the Munroe K team and Dortech Maintenance to achieve this.
The building’s original glazed façade was developed jointly by Modern Art Glass (MAG) who were responsible for the aluminium components and Preslit who produced the picture frame external rubber gaskets that hold in place the large double-glazed units. This system was an innovative system in its day with the rubber gasket protecting the aluminium from the external environment and negating the need for a thermal break.
Inspection identified that both the double-glazed units and rubber gaskets were due for replacement and a phased plan was drawn up to undertake these works. These works are currently on-going in line with internal refurbishment works.
Both MAG or Preslit have long since ceased trading so extensive research was undertaken to identify new partners that could carefully refurbish the existing system. Dortech located a company in Manchester capable of producing bespoke rubber gaskets and these were manufactured with vulcanised corners so that the original picture frame units could be replicated.
The original glass to the building is a float glass which has the property of being very flat, an important feature for a mirror glass building. Over the years increasing safety standards has seen the original glass receive internal and external proprietary films to improve the safety and thermal properties of this glass. Given the replacement glass units have been assembled from toughened safety glass as is usual in modern building. To avoid the unsightly distorted reflections that can be apparent with toughed glass the acceptable roller-wave distortion of the glass panels has been carefully considered. Similarly, the selection of glass suppliers and DG Unit fabricators was reviewed against this criteria. Duel-Seal in Huddersfield have supplied the replacement glass panels which have then been site filmed on the internal face for added safety. The replaced glazing maintains the original mirror like appearance of the building with the new toughened glass not detracting from the monolithic building aesthetic.