Mercia House
This historic tower sits on top of Coventry’s main shopping centre and has seen Spectrum, working in conjunction with Thomas Vale Construction and Whitefriars Housing, refurbish the existing facade to the 19 storey concrete framed apartment block.
The late-1960’s tower was overclad with white ceramic glazed terracotta tiles to complement the new aluminium windows whilst providing a contemporary finish that was sensitive to the original mosaic tiles.
The rainscreen cladding is secured to an aluminium support frame allowing additional insulation to be incorporated in order to address residents concerns as to the thermal comfort of the building resulting from a lack of insulation, single glazed windows and inefficient storage heaters.
Spectrum was responsible for the design and its level of technical expertise enabled it to ensure that the building envelope satisfied all practical and functional requirements.
Marterials were delivered only when the installation teams were ready. This approach helped us overcome congestion on-site, as well as other logistical challenges caused by the awkward city centre location of the project.
As the tower is located above a busy shopping precinct, the building was extremely difficult to access requiring a complex temporary works system. All works were installed from mast climbers which required an access licence as they were located above the adjacent buildings roof space.
Mercia House is a great example of how overcladding an existing building can give it a new lease of life and significantly improve thermal efficiency.