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« Pine Trees Estate, Staines »
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 2:19AM 
Pine Trees Estate in Staines, has welcomed the refurbishment of two existing office units using the AshTech Rainscreen cladding system from Ash & Lacy Building Systems. Units 2 & 3, both two storey office blocks, had existed on the estate since the 80’s and were in desperate need of a revamp.
Project architects, T P Bennett of London, chose Ash & Lacy to meet the design specification from client Arlington Property Investors - now Goodman Property Investors.
The main requirements of the client were focused on the quality of the aesthetic appearance of the finished building.
The colour of the panels, combined with the fact that the sizes and shape of the cladding panels would have to be highly tailored to fit the profile and contours of the existing building meant that a high quality, bespoke and robust system was required which was also quick and easy to install.
Johan Conradie of T P Bennett commented, “We had a very specific colour reference to work to – Ash & Lacy were one of the only companies in the industry which had this particular colour readily available. Due to the nature of the project, we also had to bear in mind the fact that the product would have to maintain its rigidity well, with a minimal visible oil canning effect.”
Ash & Lacy’s AshTech rainscreen system met the design spec with ease, supplying main contractors Kier Southern at the site in Staines, with the attractive ACM panels in ‘Light Grey Shine’ colour, with matching capping and corner panels.
The buildings display large monolithic areas of cladding - features which are readily associated with the problems of oil canning, or ‘wavering’ of the metal sheets in other systems. However, Ash & Lacy’s AshTech panels are extremely flat, rigid and uniform without any of the distortion which can appear on some systems.
The AshTech rainscreen panels were pre-fabricated off-site by Ash & Lacy to speed up the installation process and to ensure that they precisely fit the dimensions of the existing structure.
The flexibility of AshTech means that this can be installed easily with a minimum of components and the panels accurately manufactured to satisfy any specific requirement, whether it be a new-build project or a refurbishment scheme such as the one which has transformed the Pine Trees Estate.