River House, Belfast
River house is a multimillion pound building in the heart of the Cathedral Quarter, Belfast that has become a talking point around the city. This building on High St went unnoticed before as it was dull and aesthetically boring but it has now evolved into a modern eye-catching land mark and APS products have helped contribute to this big transformation.
A major multimillion pound renovation project involved a complete new front façade and window replacement to the rear. APS were involved from a very early stage with the project’s architects, Povall Worthington and are proud to have our systems selected and installed on the project. The architects had several requirements and design issues, which we helped them achieve. These included
• A bespoke finishing cap, which is applied to every 5th bay to help break up the mass span of glass horizontally.
• The cap creates the image of a steel girder projecting through the glass façade, all of which integrated within the system and keeps the continual seal of the façade weathertight.
• Transoms are structural silicone pointed. This makes life easier during the cleaning operation via abseiling.
• The new glass frontage using Logic 50 curtain walling was installed from the top down allowing the fit-out to follow behind the curtain walling installation and reducing scaffold hiring costs and completion time.
• The whole façade is glued to the existing structure achieved with a two part resin injected into a drilled hole in to the existing floors, which bonded a stainless steel threaded bolt. This allowed the existing concrete panels to remain behind the new facade.
• APS structural projection plates provide fixings for mounting the large signage while keeping continuity of glass and weatherseal behind the sign rather than mounting back to the existing structure. All supported directly by the APS curtain walling system.
• The facade glass is a top spec solar control anti-sun to prevent any solar heat gains, yet has a high U-value performance to reduce any thermal loss.