HOME is a £25m, multi-disciplinary art centre, which has been designed by Architect’s Mecanoo. Billed as the largest art centre outside the UK’s capital city of London, in addition to being Manchester’s new centre for international contemporary art, theatre and film; it will also help establish the area as a new cultural centre.
The facade specification was quite challenging from a design perspective, requiring clever and innovative thinking by leading facade manufacturer Trimo. It also required the development of a close working relationship between Trimo and the project architects to ensure the specification with all its aesthetic and performance targets could be realised.The Ernst ter Horst-designed building’s exterior is stunning from all aspects – its triangular shape captures the eye delivering a strong focal point for the area. The configuration of the building blends public and social areas, creating a harmonised, well balanced structure. The glazed facade which is adorned with irregular spaced fins opens up to the public area. The multi-use terrace located beneath the large overhang connects to the café bar onto the public square creating a uniformed, open planned building.
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Specifically, the facade specification called for elements such as self-spanning slab-to-slab panels, the articulation of the panel joints, with integral vertical fins, integrated glazing, and in particular, a unique stainless steel dual colour front skin. Trimo’s innovative Qbiss One Facade system was the ideal solution with all requirements investigated and tested to ensure a robust and well architecturally detailed solution could be achieved.
One area in particular required further investigation; the stainless steel being used had to be able to be formed into Trimo`s unique 3-dimensionally rounded corners. This meant having to explore and test different grades of stainless steel until a low carbon grade was found and which proved to be the ideal solution. Not only did this grade of stainless form into a perfect and seamless rounded corner, unique to Trimo’s Qbiss One facade, but the duo-colour electrolytic finish was unaffected.
The completed façade solution provides a stunning and unique addition to Manchester’s city centre skyline and added to Mecanoo architect’s growing list of award winning buildings.
Building type: Centre for international contomporary arts, theatre & film
Investor: Manchester City Council
Architects: Mecanoo
Product type: Qbliss One
Location: Manchester, United Kingdom
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