Pilkington Planar used in award-winning hospital refurbishment

Pilkington Planar has been used in an award winning refurbishment of the historic St Thomas' Hospital in London.

St Thomas’ Hospital is a renowned teaching hospital located in central London, opposite the Houses of Parliament on the south bank of the River Thames.

Given its prominent location and out-dated building, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust felt that its Gassiot House outpatients centre was in need of a serious refurbishment.

This has now been completed and is based around an entirely redesigned floor plan, incorporating four separate outpatient clinics, as well as a new glass atrium to enclose an existing external courtyard. Glass featured extensively as the material of choice for both internal and external structural walls and ceiling areas, providing a light, airy and contemporary feel to the revamped outpatient centre.

The project architects BMJ, and their façade consultants Hyder, worked closely with the Pilkington Planar™ technical team to bring this vision to life. Approximately 150 square metres of the Pilkington Planar™ structural glazing system was used in the project. This included glass beams, in place of steel, to support the external façade of the building, adding to the sense of openness and connection to the outdoors.

Pilkington Planar Sun 30/17 was then also chosen as the external glazing for its superior solar control properties. This enables the building to make the most of natural residual heat from the sun – termed passive solar gain – while ensuring the interior doesn’t get uncomfortably hot in the summer.

Pilkington Planar is renowned for its structural capability as well as its unrivalled stability and safety properties. It allows architects to build entire structures out of glass, facilitating increased design flexibility. The innovative glazing system utilises stainless steel fittings housed in countersunk holes fixed to the interior of the glass façade, providing a flush glass surface to the exterior. The result is a fully engineered system with the minimum of structure and maximum visual clarity.

All of this has helped to create a stunning new outpatient centre for the half a million patients, staff and visitors who use the building each year.

Tim Morgan, Technical Development Manager for the NSG Group, explains: “St Thomas’ Hospital has been in existence since the 12th Century, so it’s especially gratifying to know that we’ve helped to write a whole new chapter in its illustrious history. We were obviously delighted to have this underscored by the project winning Public Sector Project of the Year at the G12 Awards.

The main contractor in the project was ME Construction. The glass supplier was Pilkington Architectural Glass accredited installer Birchdale Glass Ltd.