Early specification of Knauf Aquapanel Exterior at the design stage of a 60-bed care home in Winnersh has provided both speed and cost savings for specialist care home developer Castleoak Group.
The Abbeyfield Winnersh care home is formed of four striking circular clusters that create a unique community to deliver innovative dementia care. Aquapanel Exterior cement boards were used as a substitute façade system to brick and completed with a rendered finish.
Castleoak deployed lean construction techniques to optimise the build process. Work began on site in March 2015 and was completed in April 2016.
Facing cost pressure and difficulty securing brick and block supplies, Castleoak operations director Neil Robins and his colleagues were charged with designing a build strategy without the use of brick.
“With inhouse timber frame design and manufacturing, Castleoak was able to offer our customer a really innovative build solution,” Neil says.
“The design was challenging, but we weren’t daunted. We knew we had to try something different.”
“Our solution was to prefabricate all panels, floors cassettes, and for the first time, apply external render panels at the Castleoak factory for this build. This strategy offered a great quality solution – and enabled us to better control the build programme with less dependency on subcontractors.”
The decision to use Aquapanel was made easier due to its characteristics as a directly applied render carrier board. The cement board combines the benefits of brick and block and, because it consists of aggregated Portland cement with coated glass fibre mesh embedded in the back and front surfaces, provides the ideal key for render.
Morgan Palmer, operations manager at Castleoak, says: “The installation of the Aquapanel Exterior panels went to plan. The design and materials were well specified and performed. The programme remained on track.”
