Project Outline
The Coal Orchard is a new development set on the banks of the river Tone offering an attractive mix of residential, restaurant, retail, and leisure spaces within the garden town of Taunton. The project, titled Riverside at Coal Orchard, is at the very heart of Taunton’s cultural quarter. Within this thriving hub, Riverside at Coal Orchard’s mixed-use development is complemented by Somerset’s iconic cricket ground, boutique shopping area, the Brewhouse Theatre and Arts Centre that all surround the development.
Develop
ParCa Ltd were introduced to the project by the specified and selected supplier of granite cladding. After an online call with the site and design team we quickly carried out an initial assessment of the requirements and proposed the system that could be used with the chosen materials and the desired construction detail. The stone cladding to be 63mm in thickness gave the units some decent weight, but we only had a 22mm cavity to work with for fixings. ParCa Ltd provided the overall assessment including budget costing and lead times for the package, all of our proposals include our full design service.
Detail
Once our initial proposal had been accepted ParCa Ltd got to work on the overall design, and as part of our detailing and design package we provided full structural calculations to show the system being capable of supporting the units, run layout drawings and full schedules of materials to be supplied, along with technical data sheets for the associated fixings to be incorporated into the system. All of the detailing work carried out is submitted to the site team for approval, we are happy to carry the liability for our designs and systems, but we can only design the systems to the information provided, so it is vital all parties involved play a part in approving the system and materials for use. The project had started in August 2019, just before the Covid Pandemic, a very turbulent and now historic timeline of events, this meant the project was hit with various delays, which eventually gave rise to additional obstacles and although somewhat late the project was successfully completed in late October 2022.
Above left- One of the material schedule pages,
Above top right- A layout drawing for one of the walls to be clad.
Above bottom right- Manufacturing drawings for all angles with special cuts.
For each individual wall to be clad, parCa produced an overall layout drawing (top right), showing the runs of angle support required, the section through and noted the specification of the fixings etc. From this layout drawing a schedule of materials is produced (top left) which details the angle reference number, length, number of fixing and dowel holes, the weight and any special cuts. Every run would then have a manufacturing drawing produced and a sheet for any specials (bottom right).
This service is carried out on all projects no matter how big or small, we believe the devil is in the detail and we want to make sure we you get the right materials for the right application at the right time.
This process is undertaken to an agreed timeline with the site team, and we provide regular updates throughout on timescales involved in producing the drawings to ensure we manage the design period effectively and allow pleanty of time for the manufacture and delivery of the materials. All too often it is believed the lead time is ticking away while we design the system, but we cannot manufacture anything until the design is complete, making this the most critical time period within the overall process.
Deliver
Throughout the manufacturing period, we welcome anyone to visit our production facility and check on the progress of their order, but we realise time is a precious commodity, so we produce inspection reports for all orders, which are sent prior to dispatch of the materials, giving a glance at what to expect when the materials arrive on site.
Most projects will be delivered in phases, so a report is done for each phase or delivery, even if it encompasses multiple runs. For this project we delivered the angles in one go, so one report was produced for the entire project.
Just because the materials are delivered to site it does not mean our job is done, we are on hand all through the installation process to advise and support the team to ensure the overall installation goes as smoothly as possible and if any issues are encountered, we work as one team to resolve in a time critical manner. For this project we attended site pre-installation, met with the site team, handed over a full pack of drawings and ran through the system, and this was the only visit required.
We always want o ensure the overall aesthetics are to the highest standards, and although our system is not actually visible being the support system behind the cladding we still want to ensure the cladding itself is treated in the right way, especially when it comes to natural stone, so we offered advice during the detailing stage of the best way to joint the cladding panels and we supplied the site with a specialist non-leach stone sealant to fill the joints, we even worked out the quantity required based on joint size and depth.
