Sureclad rainscreen system earns award

Sureclad rainscreen system earns Queen's Award for Shackerley.

Shackerley Holdings Group Limited is celebrating the news that its range of Sureclad ventilated rainscreen systems has earned the company a Queen's Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category.

Shackerley, one of the UK's key distributors of ceramic granite, developed Sureclad in order to allow newly built and refurbished buildings to be protected and aesthetically transformed with fully vitrified ceramic granite ventilated rainscreens.

Sureclad comprises a range of high-grade aluminium horizontal and vertical rails, profiles and brackets installed on an outer wall to create a carrier system with a defined air cavity.

Shackerley's large format ceramic granite cladding panels are then 'invisibly' fixed to the substructure using the company's patented stainless steel undercut anchor method to create a sleek monolithic facade.

A major benefit of Shackerley's standard Sureclad Access system is that any individual facade panel can be removed in isolation for access to services concealed behind the facade.

Furthermore, because the ceramic granite slabs do not have to be fixed sequentially, contractors can install facades without resorting to traditional scaffolding.

In terms of performance and aesthetics, Shackerley's ceramic granite is ideally suited for use in rainscreen cladding applications.

It has virtually zero porosity (Class B1A) and is resistant to extreme climatic conditions and impervious to airborne pollutants.

Made entirely from natural constituents, it is an attractive and exceptionally hardwearing material that can be manufactured to resemble any quarried stone.

A technically engineered and quality controlled product, it has none of the flaws and imperfections associated with hewn stone such as marble or granite.

This means that comparatively thin and lightweight slabs of ceramic granite provide outstanding protection without imposing excessive loadings on the building and the substructure.

As a result of the development of the Sureclad rainscreen system, UK architects and their clients are now employing Shackerley's large format ceramic granite slabs in ventilated rainscreen applications all across the country.

Sureclad rainscreens are being specified for an ever-increasing number of prestigious construction projects, including major hotels, shopping centres, university faculty buildings, libraries, student accommodation and luxury apartment buildings.

The recent completion of the Paragon Centre, a prefabricated complex of residential buildings in Brentford in London, was the biggest ceramic granite ventilated facade cladding project in the UK.

Shackerley provided Sureclad rainscreen substructures and over 9000m2 of unpolished prefabricated ceramic granite panels for the six buildings, including the Paragon Tower, the UK's tallest modular development.

Commenting on the development of Sureclad and its impact, Brian Newell, Shackerley founder and Chief Executive said: "Technological advances in recent years have led to the creation of larger and larger format ceramic granite panels.

These are too large for conventional fixing in adhesives and cement mortar, but are absolutely ideal for use when mechanically fixed in external cladding applications because of their aesthetic appeal, their technical performance and consistency, and their exceptional durability.

"At the same time, the protective and aesthetic benefits of ventilated rainscreens have become much more widely understood and exploited.

We recognised at a very early stage that in order to tap the potential in the UK market we needed a safe, secure and stress-free method of mechanically fixing large format ceramic granite slabs to the building to create ventilated rainscreen facades.

We developed Sureclad as our solution and the system is now fully patented." Inventing and perfecting the substructure was only part of the story as Brian Newell explained: "Ceramic granite is a difficult material to prefabricate because of its sheer strength, so we decided that the best way to establish its use as a rainscreen material was to invest heavily in specialised equipment and expertise at our Lancashire factory to make sure that we could provide all the prefabrication services our clients might need.

"Our belief in the system has been totally vindicated.

We have seen our rainscreen business grow exponentially and we're proud to have been involved with some of the most exciting design-led and high profile construction projects in the country in recent years.

"Through the development of Sureclad, Shackerley has played a major role in the creating the market for ceramic granite rainscreens in this country and has had a very visible impact on the architectural landscape.

We are absolutely delighted that our achievement has been recognised with a prestigious Queen's Award for Enterprise." This is the second time in five years that Shackerley has been recognised with a Queen's Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category.

In 2002 the company earned its first royal commendation for the successful development of Framelight, an ingenious easy-to-use system for assembling glass block walls and partitions in the home.

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