Stonebridge Estate
An “astonishing” project that has helped transform a troubled London borough estate has a distinctive external appearance, thanks to the imaginative use of expanded metal mesh.
The Pavilion is the centrepiece of a £2.8 million development of sports and community facilities at the Stonebridge Estate in Brent. The work marks the culmination of more than a dozen years of investment in both the community and the physical environment of the estate, which was one of the few government-sponsored Housing Action Trusts, or HATs.
The sports project, which also includes state-of-the-art outdoor pitches, contributed towards the estate winning this year’s “Community Benefit” category in the annual Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ (RICS) Awards.
The Pavilion, which was officially opened in January, includes a reception area; office; changing rooms; café; multi-purpose hall for sports including basketball, netball and tennis; training rooms and a viewing terrace that overlooks floodlit artificial sports pitches.
The most striking feature of The Pavilion is that the entire façade is clothed in anodised aluminium mesh, supplied by The Expanded Metal Company. This use of a material previously associated with the internal structure of buildings as reinforcement or as a carrier for plasterwork, lends the Stonebridge sports facility a practical, but nonetheless airy quality. It helps render the building secure without giving it a fortress appearance. Letters spelling The Pavilion were cut out of the aluminium mesh specified for the façade, anodised separately in a red colour and re-attached within the facia to fix its identity.
The RICS judges were very impressed by what they saw, commenting that the overall effect of the project was astonishing and that “the whole locality is transformed.”
Referring specifically to the Expanded Metal façade, Barry Woodman, chairman of the RICS award’s London Assessors said: “It provides a practical, utilitarian and relatively cost effective outer shield, while maintaining an attractive appearance. We were impressed by the careful detailing, and the design of the outer shutter to the main doors was very clever and innovative.”
Meanwhile, for designers Eger Architects, partner Selina Hamilton said: “The facility is for local residents and the wider community, addressing inequalities in education and skill, health and employment opportunities. The client wanted a façade solution that provided high security at night and a robust exterior.”
The entire sports project, with Durkan Pudelek as main contractor, took just 12 months to complete. The expanded metal mesh was engineered by The Expanded Metal Company’s close partners, cladding specialists, James & Taylor Ltd, who were instructed by the architect to find a material that protected against rain, sun, and unwanted attempts at entry. Taking the sheets of, expanded mesh, James & Taylor fabricated them into frames, allowing each section of anodised mesh to be securely fixed to the structure, creating a hard wearing reflective finish. They were supplied to the installation subcontractor, Steel Options, who in turn installed the mesh façade on behalf of the main Contractor
Andy Foster, Head of Marketing at The Expanded Metal Company commented, “The use of expanded metal mesh is attracting the attention of ever more architects as its raft of qualities are understood more fully. The use of reflective metal, as in the case of the Stonebridge Estate on a large façade ensures that it changes appearance during the course of a day as the weather and natural light conditions alter. “
He added that the aesthetic quality of mesh as a material can be varied according to the choice of a virtually limitless variety in the pattern of the mesh itself.
Architects working in or for the public sector will be further encouraged by the fact that expanded metal mesh’s environmental qualities tick multiple boxes on the sustainability checklist. Its production is not wasteful of the material used. The mesh is created by a process of stretching and slitting the metal rather than punching out holes, so there is minimal waste. In many cases around 40% of the product is manufactured using recycled metals and of course it is itself recyclable when the construction, of which it is part, comes to the end of its useful life.
The mesh is strong yet lightweight and its flexibility adds a range of design possibilities. Any ductile material can be expanded to a range of thicknesses and patterns, from traditional diamonds to squares, hexagons, parallel strands and so forth. It can be finished in a range of specialist coatings – powder-coated, painted, galvanised, anodised and coloured to blend in with any environment.
It also has the appeal of being both a new material in the architectural sense, but a tried and tested one within the field of construction generally. This enables architects with a public sector client to offer designs which are pioneering in concept but that use a material whose characteristics and strengths are well known; a fact that always recommends itself to the risk-averse public project.
