New student accommodation blends perfectly

Thanks to StoTherm Classic new student accommodation blends perfectly with traditional university surroundings

The National University of Ireland at Maynooth, County Kildare, is located on the western fringes of Dublin and rubs shoulders with the headquarters of many Irish and European multi-national high technology companies.

The university is directly descended from St.

Patrick's College, established in 1795 as the result of an act passed by Grattan's Parliament to create an academy "for the better education of persons professing the popish or Roman Catholic religion".

The college was soon to become the largest seminary in the world.

Over time it evolved into a Pontifical University offering courses in Theology, Philosophy and Canon Law and much more recently, in 1997, the faculties of Arts, Science, Celtic Studies and Philosophy were united in a newly established constituent university, an autonomous self-governing institution within the federal National University of Ireland.

Today, NUI Maynooth is a fast growing non-denominated university which sees itself as an institution rich in history, but with a distinct mission in a rapidly developing modern Ireland.

Its traditional core strengths remain, but have been augmented by new developments in finance, computer sciences, software engineering and electronic engineering.

Students from every part of Ireland and an increasing number from overseas make up the 5,500 population of this dynamic and innovative university.

On-campus residential accommodation, all of which is located on the North Campus, has come under some strain in the last few years with the increase in student numbers.

To meet the demand, additional accommodation for 650 students has been provided in the last few years and this summer sees a further 250 take up residence in three new specially commissioned blocks.

Defining technical standards for almost 40 years.

The new residential buildings, one three storey and two four storey, have a natural brick cladding finish to the lower ground floor while the upper floors feature the StoTherm Classic façade insulation system.

Over 3000m2 of this seamless exterior render finish have been used on the new accommodation with an off-white colour chosen to blend in with the existing buildings.

Sto, a major multi-national organisation, is dedicated to the development of products and systems that protect, maintain and enhance the value and aesthetics of buildings.

The company was founded in Germany over 150 years ago and StoTherm Classic has been defining technical standards for almost 40 of those years, during which time over 50 million square metres of façade area have been installed around the world.

It is a completely organic, highly durable, external wall insulation system (EWIS) with unrivalled performance in extreme climates with a shock-proof and impact resistance ten times higher than inorganic systems.

StoTherm Classic reduces heat loss, protects buildings from heat gain and prevents thermal bridging, resulting in far less temperature-induced stress on the building envelope.

It also guarantees weatherproofing by keeping out driving rain and snow, yet remains permeable to water vapour - again adding to the service life of the façade.

StoTherm Classic permits virtually unlimited design freedom too, with over 800 through-coloured renders and a variety of textures to choose from.

A system with outstanding performance At the heart of the StoTherm Classic system is a CFC and HCFC free, rigid expanded polystyrene foam board (EPS), which can be either adhesively bonded or mechanically fixed.

The substrate of the new University accommodation is concrete and it was decided to mechanically fix on this occasion.

Put simply, this involves an aluminium starter track being installed at the base of the system, using stainless steel fixings and the first row of EPS boards is then inserted, using a 'T' spline between each board.

The row is secured with a holding track and the process begins again with the next row of boards.

Pvc packing shims are used if any alignment should be necessary.

The system owes its outstanding performance to a unique cement-free, highly flexible, fibre-reinforced plaster, StoArmat Classic, into which a specially developed reinforcing mesh (Sto Glass Fibre) is embedded during application, making it extremely crack resistant - around four times that of conventional systems.

The finishing plaster (Stolit K) is then applied.

This is an organically bound, cement-free decorative finishing plaster which, when introduced over 45 years ago, established Sto's competence in the field of façade finishes.

It is highly elastic, resistant to mechanical stress, offers a complete weather protective finish and allows the walls to breathe.

Its balanced formulation and use of high grade materials guarantee low water absorption, optimum adhesion to the substrate and a high elasticity which offers more than 15 times the crack resistance of conventional modified cementitious renders.

Kevin Tolan of architects Moloney O' Beirne and Partners points out: "By using the Sto self-finishing render, it eliminates the need for maintenance and painting".

" This meant that we had the freedom to use the contrasting finishes of both a brick and a render finish knowing that the entire envelope of the building was maintenance free, a big advantage with such large scale Campus developments.".

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