Wilcombe Children Centre fitted with Rehau Polytec

Rehau Polytec 50 composite glazed curtain walling system has been installed by Fenster at a new Children's Centre built at Wilcombe Primary School in Tiverton, Devon.

Ease of installation, speed of delivery and enhanced thermal performance were the key reasons for the specification of the Rehau Polytec 50 composite system.

The centre has been constructed by infilling redundant space in the internal courtyard of the school to create a new building with a 164m footprint.

It is orientated to align with the existing building and make best use of the irregular space.

The school has a large percentage of glazing to its main elevation so the project architects continued the glazed theme in the Children's Centre with full height glazed curtain walling in Rehau Polytec 50.

A sinusoidal roof curve was selected because it offered the least complicated route for intersecting the two structures and added a striking feature to the roof line of the whole building.

Fenster, the specialist fabricator and installer of the Rehau Polytec 50 system which was awarded the contract for the project, worked closely with the roof form company to ensure that the curtain walling interfaced successfully with it both technically and aesthetically.

The installation at the Children's Centre proved such a success that Fenster and Rehau were awarded the second phase of the project to install Rehau Polytec 50 across a 30m elevation in the school itself.

Here, Rehau Tritec windows were used within the curtain walling and these were installed using an innovative clip in section which is very installer friendly and minimises expensive site work.

Rehau Polytec 50 is a proven choice in educational environments because the internal steel layer is encased with PVC-U making the frames much warmer to the touch for children than aluminium.

There are essentially three layers to the system - an outer aluminium face which, dependent on volumes, can be colour coded or manufactured with different shaped cover caps to meet architectural specifications, then a polymer and foam layer which provides thermal performance Uf-values of up to 0.88 W/mK and, inside, steel reinforcement with an E-modulus up to three times greater than aluminium to provide structural strength with minimal profile depth.

Back to top