WICONA Windows frame historic skyline for York Insurance company
WICONA Windows frame historic skyline for York Insurance company
2017-06-14
The creation of a new corporate headquarters and customer interface facility for a York based insurance company has seen high performance systems from the WICONA range employed to help achieve the client’s ambitions of building a stylish and sustainable property, including attaining a BREEAM rating of Very Good.
The Hiscox building in York has been constructed by main contractor BAM Construction, with Make Architects in London leading the design team, while Glassolutions was the specialist fenestration sub-contractor. Amongst the many impressive aspects to the property is a third floor terrace, fronting meeting rooms, where WICTEC 50SG sliding doors give access to the outside space and the stunning views of the historic walled city.
Such is the design freedom offered by the WICTEC range that Glassolutions’ in-house team was able to work with Make Architects to create a sweeping glazed wall which includes both convex and concave forms with constantly varying faceted angles. The project team chose to utilise an exterior 150 mm mullion, with all sections showing a RAL 7012 Basalt Grey Qualicoat Matt finish, while 47 mm thick high performance IG units deliver the thermal performance required.
One of the senior architects involved with the project for Make Architects, George Guest, commented: “The client wanted to create much more than an office building, with half of the floor area being given over to creating an atrium, while there is a lot of exposed concrete at the balcony edges and all around the interior – giving impact and creating thermal mass.
“With this project being designed to achieve BREEAM Very Good, making use of passive heating and cooling was very important so we have two and a half elevations of woven brickwork, then the entire triple height north elevation being glazed. In fact we specified triple glazing to conserve energy, while the WICONA system behind the third floor terrace, overlooking the city, includes sliding doors giving access to the extensive seating and entertaining space. This has been a very successful project.”
The other glazed areas to the Hiscox building feature WICLINE 90SG windows, also offering excellent insulation values and high levels of daylight transmission in addition to an attractive aesthetic appearance.