Boyes Rees Architects specified Technal aluminium façade systems as part of major refurbishment of Royal Mail’s Mount Pleasant Mail Centre in London

OSLO, 24-2-2015 — /EuropaWire/ — Boyes Rees Architects specified aluminium façade systems from the Technal brand as part of the major refurbishment of Royal Mail’s flagship Mount Pleasant Mail Centre in London – one of the largest mail sorting offices in the world.

The project involved the refurbishment of the Letter Office Building located at the boundary of the London Boroughs of Islington and Camden.

The building dates back to the 1930s and was in need of extensive façade repairs and upgrading works to improve energy efficiency as well as to create a distinctive façade for the historic landmark.

Originally built on the site of Coldbath Fields Prison, Mount Pleasant is Royal Mail’s busiest central London sorting office, which sorts and dispatches over 1 million items of mail across the city every day. The facility is part of a site which covers an area of 12 acres and is the center of a network of 23 miles of tunnels, 70 feet under the streets of London, that were once used to distribute mail.

During the refurbishment, the sorting office had to remain fully operational 24 hours a day.The building was stripped back to its original concrete walls; white monolithic render was renewed, and upvc windows were replaced with high performance aluminium curtain walling from the Technal brand.

The slim aluminium profiles of Technal’s GEODE-MX Visible Grid system met the architects’ requirements for maximizing natural light and retaining the building’s character.

Technal is one of the Sapa group’s global aluminium building systems brands.

Powder coated in dual colors
Technal’s curtain walling was used for all elevations with the largest glazed unit spanning up to 1.7 meters.

Commercial doors from Technal were also specified to provide access at various points around the building.

“This project was particularly challenging because the sorting office had to remain in use throughout,” says project architect Eric McLennan of Boyes Rees Architects.

“Technal provided us with a range of systems that met our specification criteria and we are very pleased with the finished result. We wouldn’t hesitate to use their façade systems on future schemes.”

The curtain walling was polyester powder coated in dual colours – white internally and bronze externally to contrast with the white render and echo the appearance of the original windows. The curtain walling was glazed in clear low E high performance solar control glass to further improve the building’s energy efficiency.

• Visit the Technal website to learn more about the brand’s aluminium building systems

CORPORATE COMMUNICATION:

Erika Ahlqvist
EVP Communication
Telephone: +47 9530 6340

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Mount Pleasant sorts and dispatches over 1 million items of mail across London every day.