Roneo Corner

“Sapphire came forward with solutions when needed and can’t see any problems on this project either.  I’ll give you a 10 overall!”

– Senior Site Manager, Hollybrook Limited

History

Romford has a storied history in North East London, originally the administrative centre of Havering and with good road links to the centre of London. Over time, this small suburb shifted towards light industry and grew throughout the 20^th century to become one of the largest commercial, retail, entertainment and leisure districts in London. Sapphire were pleased to provide the balconies to Speedwell House (formerly known as Roneo Corner), a new major development in Romford providing 48 new residential units to this thriving neighbourhood.

Streamlined by Collaboration, Delivered by Sapphire

Sapphire worked on this development alongside its sister project, Transport House, also developed by Hollybrook Limited.

Hollybrook aspired to create a balcony system that could work in conjunction with FP McCann’s pre-cast façade system, eliminating the complexities of integrating a traditional balcony connection system to concrete panels. FP McCann and Hollybrook were eager to look into a Tie-Rod system that was both safe and easy to install to their structural sandwich panel system. Aesthetically, Helix Architecture and Hollybrook were keen for the balconies to play a strong visual role on the project and for the ‘industrial’ panels to give the impression of shipping containers.

Due to a cantilevered balcony exerting so much moment force, the panel design would have been constrained as there would have needed to be sufficient concrete to structurally support the balcony. One of the key challenges was to reduce balcony loadings enough to be able to design the optimum ‘O’ panel, commonly referred to as the ‘donut’ panel – making the windows and doors fully enclosed in the panel and making onsite installation much easier.

Sapphire’s unique panel and cross member design, crossed with our innovative Clip-On® Tie-Rod balcony connection allowed for safe installation practices as well as reducing the loading on the precast sandwich panels enough to allow for the ‘donut’ panel design. We worked alongside Hollybrook and Helix Architecture to come up with an integrated thermal break in the anchor and splice plate tie rod, along with a secondary hook plate, installed once the pre-cast panels were in place. Thanks to this innovative design and collaborative effort, both time on site and money was saved, making sure this development could be delivered from concept to completion in a speedy 20 months.