The lightweight Natura Plus through-coloured rainscreen panels in Anthracite were specified to clad, in an outsized planking effect, the whole of the 1,150m² site at Singleton hospital on Sketty Lane, Swansea, for Swansea NHS Trust.
Richard Golledge of Nightingale Associates said: “We wanted a mechanical system which was quick to install and to minimise the level of wet trades on site. We also wanted a panel system that we could use to disguise the repetitive nature of the off-site volumetric approach as each unit is only three metres wide.
“Anthracite was used because the backdrop of the building has a band of trees on the site boundary and dark grey actually helps the building recede into this green backdrop.”
This approach, coupled with a partnering contract that brought the design team, contractor and client together at an early stage, more than met the brief, with the volumetric off-site units delivered and erected in just five days. The whole project, from inception to completion, took less than 12 months.
Now the trust has a building with 850m² of fire-resistant and low-maintenance envelope that has since won a Lord Mayor’s Design Award for the city and county of Swansea.
Mr Golledge added: “The Marley Eternit cladding was very important to the success of the scheme which is entirely clad in Natura Plus board in a rather monolithic way. It would have been a very different building if anything else was used.
“Feedback has been very positive. The Marley Eternit cladding enhances the design and gives the building a modern 21st century aesthetic. It was also a good way of giving the appearance of a ‘permanent’ contemporary building rather than a ‘temporary’ building that volumetric off-site manufacture-constructed schemes often give.”
Although the office had not used Natura Plus before, they are now using it again, on a new Renal and Cardiac Unit at the Wales and West General Hospital at Carmarthen.