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« St. Bede’s School, Cambridge »
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 5:50AM 
The new Sports Hall at St. Bede’s School in Cambridge - one of the only Christian state school in Cambridgeshire - is topped with an impressive, silver, curved AshZip roof, which was rolled on site.
The plain aluminium, standing-seam, roofing system – manufactured and supplied by Ash & Lacy - consists of 1,144 square metres of AshZip in a bright metallic silver supplied in 35 metre lengths which were formed and curved at the roof-eaves during installation.
Ash & Lacy’s containerised mobile roll-forming units provide this option of manufacture on site depending on sheet lengths required. To achieve curves to a tighter radius Ash & Lacy have also developed mobile curving technology which can be used on site.
The standing-seam system at St. Bede’s School is an example of the Ashzip 400 profile specified with full-height halters (245mm) on ‘top hats’ to achieve an insulation U-value of 0.25W/m2K. The roof also incorporates a perforated structural deck to meet the acoustic requirements of the school for the Sports Hall.
Creating a curved standing seam roof like St. Bede’s - without the use of a secondary support system - has often proved problematic for other systems. When the standing seam top sheet is pre-curved or site-flexed the pan of the sheet flexes causing the side laps of the sheet also to flex outwards, thereby increasing the cover width of the sheet.
This increase in width (by up to 8 mm) means that if a full-height halter is used, it does not fit the liner sheet, thus making setting-out very difficult.
Ash & Lacy have developed the profile of the AshZip standing seam top sheet to ensure it maintains its width when pre-curved or site-flexed. This means that a full- height halter bracket can be used on curved roofs at 400mm centres with a standard 200mm liner profile.
This significantly reduces installation time as a single component is fixed straight through to the purlin, thus making installation as straightforward as when using straight sheets.
Main Contractors for the building of the Sports Hall were Kier Eastern, who appointed roofing contractors, S&G Industrial Roofing to install the AshZip standing-seam system.
As well as fitting the AshZip 400 sheets, S&G also fitted 200 linear metres of bullnoses and verges supplied by Ash & Lacy to cover the ends of the soffit sheets, bullnose and standard flashings and polyester, powder-coated rainwater goods in metallic silver.
The new Sports Hall - which was officially opened by javelin thrower and Olympic athlete, Goldie Sayers - has been built for a wide variety of sports including badminton, basketball and indoor tennis. Additional features include two multi-purpose rooms and an upper-level spectator area.
Four outdoor tennis courts have also been built as part of the whole project which cost just under £2 million. Funded partly by Cambridge City Council who contributed £210,000, the facilities will provide community use during evenings and weekends.