The Royal Bank of Scotland

The Royal Bank of Scotland
Manchester
[ 191 ]

accomplishment 2002–2004
investor The Royal Bank of Scotland
architect RHWL Architects
type of construction unitised facade
type of building administrative
general contractor Sir Robert McAlpine
project volume of the facade 0–1,9 mil. EUR

Between October 2002 and April 2004 Sipral executed several parts of a new bank envelope in Manchester, England. The built-up area is 4600m2 and the area of the peripheral envelope is approx. 12000 m2. Sipral fabricated 4 types (WT1, WT3, WT6 a WT7) out of seven in total for the English contractor of the envelope, i.e. approx. 72% of the whole bank cladding.

The Royal Bank of Scotland

Most of the facade types are made of elements. With minimum kinds of facades and big volume of them we could make good use of element facade advantage – maximum quality of fabrication thanks to repeated series and substantial shortening of installation time. Based on approval documentation assigned by the English partner Sipral prepared shop drawings and material specification according to which our English partner ordered material and delivered it to Prague.  

The Royal Bank of Scotland

There were used Schüco custom-made profiles on the facades. These were delivered including special English silver and blue-grey anodized surfacing. Sipral was responsible for machining, assembly and transport of individual facade types to England to the site. The project was done in several stages - WT1 and WT3 and then WT7 and WT6.

Description of delivered constructions:

- WT 1 – element facade of 2 x 3.70m with combination of 2/3 glazing and 1/3 stone cladding, the window opening is bordered with a custom-made profile of blue-grey anodizing

- WT 3 – all-glazed modules of 1.5 x 3.70m

- WT 6 – combination of element and stick system on the one-storeyed building, incl. approx 130 entrance and interior doors made of RS65 and RS50N systems with door closers already installed.

- WT 7 – high variety of modules with stone cladding and modules with opening large-scale fire structurally glued windows, supplied with a motor drive.

One of technically interesting parts of the project was a vertical strip of glazing on staircase cores made of WT7 modules. It was composed of large glazed modules with two window flaps that have glass elements structurally glued on them. On the north the window flaps are fix-installed in a frame and on the southern facade both flaps are opened and locked with a set of electric motors. Complexity of module assemblage consisted of motor installation, locking system tuning and mainly in compilation of huge module frames which required high exactness and patience of people in workshop.