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News Release from: Marley Eternit | Subject: Fibre cement cladding
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial Team on 11 August 2006

Marley Eternit Cladding brings colour to
Clydebank

Three colours of fibre cement cladding by Marley Eternit are helping transform the Scottish town of Clydebank.

Three colours of fibre cement cladding by Marley Eternit are helping to kick off a £400million transformation of the Scottish town of Clydebank, famous for its shipbuilding, engineering and sewing machine manufacturing past Award-winning architects Gordon Murray + Alan Dunlop specified 1,000m2 of Marley Eternit Multiclad fibre cement panels in the colours Terra Brown, Pastel Blue and Copper Brown to reflect the area's heritage

The town's 15-year riverside regeneration process is being orchestrated by Clydebank re-built, one of only three pathfinder urban regeneration companies in Scotland and one driven by the ethos that quality design makes inspiring places and vibrant economies.

The 450-acre waterfront corridor is blighted by poor environment and expansive tracts of vacant, derelict and under-utilised property whose development potential is compromised by contamination and other ground problems, access and servicing difficulties, and most importantly, a lack of market interest and confidence.

Clydebank re-built's wide-ranging activities include the reinvigoration and development of public spaces, the release and preparation of office, leisure and residential sites, and the construction of niche business space.

One of a series of early-action and high-profile initiatives designed to frame and promote the town's potential, the £2.8million JKS Workshops/phase 1 development comprises the provision of 1,700m2 of small industrial premises close to the boundary with Glasgow city.

The units, which range in size from 44 to 77m2, and are provided in three identical blocks each containing seven units varying in size from 500 to 2,000ft2, created nine construction jobs during the 18-month build and will eventually employ about 80 people.

Gm+ad architects' brief was to design new industrial start up units, inexpensively but with flair and an architectural edge.

They had to signpost, on the main thoroughfare, a new and interesting change happening in Clydebank and regenerate an area that some consider to have been neglected.

The single-storey buildings are steel framed and made weathertight with standard industrial materials.

Each module is wrapped individually with Marley Eternit's rainscreen cladding to a higher specification than the usual speculative industrial development, providing each module with its own identity.

Part of the brief was to interpret Clydebank's proud past with reference to the John Brown shipyards and the Singer sewing machine factory but also to mark a start - as first building in the Clydebank regeneration scheme - into a dynamic future.

Two principal materials were selected for the external skin including Marley Eternit's Multiclad panels.

These feature a standard RAL colour acrylic paint factory finish and the idea was to screen-print an ornamental pattern onto the panels based on a Singer sewing machine stitching pattern.

Although screen-printing process is an inexpensive but effective way to individualise a standard industrial material research was carried out to ensure the chemical compatibility of base colour, screen print ink and anti-graffiti coating (water based/solvent based).

Light fastness of pigments used in the screen printing ink had to be investigated to ensure that colours, especially on the south facade, will last more than 10 years.

The high-level elements of the "Jenga-formed" units are clad in translucent polycarbonate allowing for natural daylight.

At the same time, these elements glow at night in colours corresponding to the individual screen-printing colours, creating a reference point and identity along Glasgow Road and marking an entrance into Clydebank.

At the access points to each unit, the cladding has been cut regardless of panel sizes, creating a deep recess.

This emphasises the perception of the external skin as a piece of cloth-like fabric, independently wrapped around each module.

The development fronts one of the main arterial routes into the town and combined with the revitalised adjacent streetscape boldly states the design ambition for the town's regeneration.

It is the catalyst to more extensive redevelopment of the six-hectare brownfield John Knox Street locale, which has been designated for business use in the Local Plan.

The workshops project involved an initial phase of decontamination and servicing.

The £800,000 works contract for the preparation of this 0.8-hectare site within the wider John Knox Street area was let by Clydebank re-built with a funding package from West Dunbartonshire Council and the European Regional Development Fund.

Council support included the transfer of site ownership to Clydebank re-built.

The build cost of £1.9 million was on budget and the development was officially opened by Scotland's First Minister, the Rt Hon Jack McConnell MPS.

Gm+ad architects have used Marley Eternit's Multiclad frequently before, on small-scale refurbishment projects for Strathclyde University, and their plans for the JFK workshops were well received by planners.

Project architect Reiner Nowak said: "We specified Multiclad for this project because it is an inexpensive product which can be used to great effect".

"The screen printing process enabled us to individualise a standard industrial product and add some extra meaning relative to the project and the area".

"With theoretically any colour available, we tried to work within the limits of the standard colour range.

The colours chosen are in reference to the colours of the hills and heather land (violet blue, dark brown and copper brown) which forms a backdrop to the scheme.

Sustainability and recycling of the material also played an important role in specifying it".

He added: "It was one of two main elements in achieving a bold statement about place, regeneration and decoration/ornament.

We are very pleased with the overall effect.

It turned out as we hoped it would and achieves what we tried to achieve." Alan Robertson, project manager for Clydebank re-built, said: "While of a largely standard construction, the inventive cladding detail ensures this is a highly individualistic development that bucks the formulaic design often associated with the provision of small workshop accommodation".

""The architects responded creatively to the community's fierce pride in the town's heritage through the subtle use of cladding materials, colour and pattern".

"This has ensured a respectful nod to shipbuilding and Singer's sewing machines without being kitsch." The project is one of only three in Scotland to win a RIBA Award 2006 and it has also won gm+ad Best Regeneration Project and Clydebank re-built the Chairman's Award for Architecture, both at the 2006 Scottish Design Awards.

It has also featured on The Culture Show on BBC 2 TV.

The RIBA Award judges said: "The windowless, top-lit shed is about as basic as building can get".

"But put a series of such light industrial units together, consider the whole as a large, cubic composition, add a talented designer and this most unpromising type can become good architecture". Request a free brochure from Marley Eternit ...

"This is a pioneering design and gives distinction to the most practical of functions.".

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