Golden Balconies for Acton Gardens

Acton Gardens, situated in the heart of Acton, is an award-winning urban village in West London designed by A&Q Partnership and constructed by Countryside Properties. Sapphire was invited to create the bespoke balconies for this project. Our team of experts designed and manufactured 87 bespoke Glide-On™ balconies.

The Acton Gardens project required us to create some unique balconies in order to bring the design vision to life. Our designers worked closely with the architects at A&Q Partnership and devised bespoke Glide-On™ balconies with vertical bar balustrades with a mesh panel on the bottom on both inside and out. This mesh brings additional privacy for the balconies giving residents greater peace of mind. We then added a unique design finish for these bespoke balconies using a bespoke bronze/gold metallic powder coating. The finish of the balconies with the warm tones of the façade give the building a golden glow.

At Sapphire, our aim is to engineer innovative solutions to best complement the design vision of the client. We do so in compliance with high standards of specification and design vision to manufacturing offsite, maintaining standardised processes and designs and providing the benefits of modern methods of construction to our clients.

Once the balconies were manufactured and tested against the high specifications and quality standards, our logistics team ensured the smooth delivery of the products, fully assembled for installation, to the site. This was crucial to ensure that the balconies reached the site on time for a quick installation without creating the need for on-site storage. Upon arrival, the balconies were lifted out of the lorries and easily installed directly on to the building, reducing both time and effort on site.

The Glide-On™ cassettes manufactured for the Acton Gardens project had various benefits for the contactors, Countryside Properties. They helped reduce time on site, as the balconies were delivered fully assembled, cutting down on installation time. The cassettes were produced in a factory environment, ensuring a high level of quality control during the manufacturing and assembling process. The offsite manufacturing of the balconies also helped to reduce costs while increasing the quality of the balconies. Additionally, this method of balcony installation also reduced the duration of scaffolding on-site, resulting in a direct cost saving to the contractor. The easy installation process of the cassettes reduced the need for workers on-site, reducing the risks involved while working at height. The fully assembled cassettes were delivered to the site just before the installation, minimising the need for on-site storage.

The use of MMC at Acton Gardens in West London helped bring the designers’ vision to life without compromising on the quality or efficiency of the balconies installed.