Orbit Housing’s
Fordham House in Stratford-upon-Avon aims to raise the bar for rented
accommodation.
Designed for key
workers in the town, the 82-apartment block will provide enhanced protection
against noise, a superior maintenance and repair strategy and additional
facilities such as secure internal bike storage rooms.
Much of the budget for
these above-and-beyond features has come from the specification of Modus PVC-U
windows from Eurocell in place of the aluminium frames originally specified.
“We saved a
significant amount without compromising on the specification or the design”,
says Orbit Commercial Director Adam Cooper. “And from a planner’s point of
view, they look identical”.
Deeley Construction
began work on the site, which sits on the corner of Birmingham and Clopton
Roads, in January 2016 with the demolition of a disused office building.
Construction of the foundations began in May that year, with the first tenants
due to move into their new homes in September this year.
Deeley’s parent
company is one of three partners that form the scheme’s developer ABD
Developments, and the site itself is owned by benevolent organisation Stratford
Town Trust.
Constructed from dense
concrete blocks with hollowcore flooring, the three- and four-storey building
is clad in a mixture of curtain walling and green wall – sections of planted
walls which will be automatically fed and irrigated. The Modus windows, supplied
and installed by Unique Window Systems, are tilt-and-turn so that they can be
cleaned internally, avoiding the potential hazard and traffic issues of
accessing them from the elevations by the two busy roads.
Tenants will be
required to keep their windows clean as part of their tenancy agreement.
Details about how to operate and clean the windows, together with a function
that allows tenants to report and photograph any problems with their
apartments, will be available through a smartphone app, developed by Orbit.
With many tenants
expected to come from expanding local hospitals, acoustic improvements were
high on the menu of potential value-enhancing features. Orbit has beefed up the
acoustic barriers between floors with a layer of insulation and screed with
suspended ceilings added to the deep hollow concrete slab. It has also added
fitted blinds within the reveals of the windows to provide an additional noise
cushion for shift workers who need to sleep during the day.
“We did not need to
increase the specification for the windows: the existing specification from
Eurocell provided the level of acoustic protection that we needed”, says
Cooper.
Coming with a 12-year
guarantee, the Modus system is available in nine solid and woodgrain-effect
colours, all of which are available with white internal finishes to create a
light and airy living environment. A further range of more than 40 solid and woodgrain
effect finishes is available, including colour both sides.
BBA-certified to
function satisfactorily for more than 35 years, the Modus range achieves a
U-value of 1.2 W/m² using 4/20/4 mm using sealed double-glazed
units. This effective thermal performance is due to the 75mm
six-chamber profile system used in the Modus that also enables the
range to achieve a U-value of 0.7 by
installing triple-glazed units.
This led
to Modus becoming one of the very first systems to achieve the
BFRC Window Energy Rating (WER) of A++. This is only awarded to windows with an
energy index value equal to or greater than +20; and Modus A++ designs include
casement, reversible and tilt and turn.
Consisting of 50%
post-consumer recycled PVC-U as standard, Modus has a smaller carbon footprint
than products made or recycled outside of the UK. Eurocell achieves this by
employing dual material extrusion technology (DMET) that layers post-consumer
recycled and ‘virgin’ material simultaneously, so the recycled material is
concentrated in the central core of the profiles where it cannot be seen once
the door or window is installed.
Additional budget
gained from savings on the window costs has also gone into upgrading the
flooring material. Ceramic wood-effect flooring has replaced lino to provide a
longer life and hence lower maintenance costs and down-time for Orbit.
A re-think of the
building’s layout produced space for a substantial ‘spares room’ which will
house items such as cookers and kitchen units. With all the apartments kitted
out identically, this will enable faster repairs and reduce the time required
to spruce up homes between tenancies.
With a background in
both construction and maintenance of multi-tenanted buildings, Cooper has a
better understanding than most of how decisions taken at the construction phase
impact on the experience of those who live in it. “It’s all about giving our tenants
the best customer experience we can”, he explains.
