Kingspan on display at Windermere Museum

Kingspan’s Kooltherm and Therma products have been installed as part of the naturally weathered copper façade for the Windermere Jetty – Museum of Boats, Steam and Stories, named design of the year at the 2019 AJ Architecture Awards.

The major new attraction has been constructed by Thomas Armstrong and features a unique collection of steam launches, yachts and record-breaking speed boats along with exhibition spaces and live conservation workshops.

The architects were keen to do justice to the rich social history contained within the museum and its lakeside location with a sustainable design of architectural distinction.

The buildings are carefully oriented to improve the level of natural light inside, reed beds naturally treat water run-off and a lake source heat pump provides heat and hot water.

The naturally ventilated museum is also designed to be highly energy efficient and, as part of this approach, Kingspan Kooltherm K15 Rainscreen Board was specified for the walls of the main museum building with Kingspan Thermapitch TP10 chosen for its pitched roof.

Following an extensive study of cladding materials and how they would respond to the challenging Lake District climate, they selected a corrugated oxidised copper cladding for the rainscreen façade and roof.

Kingspan Kooltherm K15 Rainscreen Board is the first insulation board for rainscreen cladding applications to achieve LABC Registered Detail status. With a thermal conductivity as low as 0.020 W/mK, the boards allowed the design team to achieve excellent fabric performance for the walls of the museum. Its lightweight design also streamlined the installation process in the challenging lakeside setting. The outer copper cladding will gently patina over time, adding green hues to the dark brown cladding.

The museum’s pitched roof has been created to echo the form of many of the local boat houses. Kingspan Thermapitch TP10 was a natural choice for this element. Its fibre-free insulation core has a thermal conductivity of 0.022 W/mK and can be used within a variety of pitched warm roof constructions.

In addition to their excellent thermal performance, Kingspan’s Insulation boards also contributed to the wider sustainability goals of the project. Both products have been assigned the highest possible summary rating of A+ under the BRE Green Guide and the boards produced at Kingspan Insulation’s Pembridge site are certified ‘Excellent’ under the demanding BES 6001 responsible sourcing standard.