Snow Hill station, the second largest train station in Birmingham, has undergone a refurbishment with the help of Pilkington Planar™ the leading frameless structural glazing system. Snow Hill is used by a large majority of the city’s commuters, making it a principal part of the city’s transport infrastructure.
Two waiting rooms and two lift shafts, which provide access to the platforms, have been revamped with approximately 300-400m2 of the Pilkington Planar™ system to provide a lighter, more pleasant visual experience inside the station. The versatility of Pilkington Planar™ also ensured the architects could construct a safe and inviting environment for its passengers whilst causing minimal disruption.
Ian Cartwright, Managing Director, Bridgetown Developments Limited, said; “Snow Hill Station is situated above and over Queensway, and one of the biggest challenges was moving the glass panels onto their storage stillages, and then lifting these stillages onto the respective platforms from below in Livery Street. All the materials had to be lifted during a night time road closure of Livery Street and during night time track possession, all coordinated by BAM Nuttall, the main contractor.”
“The installation techniques in such restricted areas, isolated from the public, involved the use of specially adapted crawler tracked and articulated lifting gear.” ”We are used to working in controlled environments with exacting constraints where the public continue to have access to the station areas, having completed all the façade and public areas at Manchester Piccadilly as well as the façades at both Chester and Southport Station”
The Pilkington Planar™ system has a proven track record in the most demanding applications, enabling architects to create complete glass envelopes for buildings, with planes of uninterrupted structural glass in virtually any orientation. Original plans to use large, single panes of glass 2m x 3.6m were changed for two reasons: firstly any damage to such a large pane of glass post construction would have been extremely difficult in terms of replacement through passenger areas, due to the size of the panel, and secondly the requirement that any subsequent glass panel replacement would need to negotiate station entrances. The optimum glass panel sizes were identified as being a maximum 2m x 2.3m on this particular project which is well within the typical maximum panels size of 2.4m x 4.8m for the Pilkington Planar™ system.
Pilkington Planar™ was specified due to the aesthetic quality of the product and strength combined with the impressive durability which underpins a 12 year product and performance warranty. The design versatility of the system and the range of glass fittings and support structures which can be installed, facilitates a wide range of architectural design solutions on challenging construction projects.
Pilkington Planar™ Specification
Waiting Rooms 370m2 of Pilkington Planar™ 19.5mm laminated toughened glass, comprising: 12mm Pilkington Optifloat™ Clear T Plus outer layer 1.52mm PVB interlayer 6mm Pilkington Optifloat™ Clear heat strengthened inner layer
Lift Shafts 106m2 of Pilkington Planar™ 19.5mm laminated toughened glass, comprising: 12mm Pilkington Optifloat™ Clear T Plus outer layer 1.52mm PVB interlayer 6mm Pilkington Optifloat™ Clear heat strengthened inner layer
For more information please visit http://www.pilkington.com/planar
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