Central London is experiencing an exciting phase of regeneration in the form of the Elephant Park project in Elephant & Castle. One of the emerging neighbourhoods this will create is Highwood Gardens, with a mixture of homes, amenities and retail spaces linked by a one-storey podium. The community will benefit from the central hub of the West Grove Club, providing an around-the-clock concierge service as well as a gym, lounge and café, all linked to a shared courtyard area.
The 104-metre-tall Highwood Tower represents the tallest structure in the development and one of the cornerstones of this masterplan, rising 31 storeys and providing the area with 222 sustainable new homes. A reliable and highly functional facade access solution therefore plays a vital role in its ongoing maintenance.
The building design by architects Alford Hall Monaghan Morris presents an attractive facade made up of anodised aluminium unitised panels. Deep fins made of natural anodised aluminium provide an arresting architectural feature and also form a framework for the building. Another key feature is the pergola which forms a crown at roof level, creating a lighter and more open quality to the tower as a whole.
The project therefore called for a building access solution capable of servicing the entire facade surface, including the ability to navigate around the crown structure and provide safe cleaning and maintenance access to the highest floors.
The CoxGomyl team delivered a comprehensive building maintenance system designed to meet the particular challenges of the project. A single Building Maintenance Unit is located at roof level and travels on a track mounted around the perimeter to provide complete facade access to every side of the tower from the roof down to ground level.
The Building Maintenance Unit provides high functionality with a telescopic roof trolley combined with a jib offering luffing and slewing movement. The specific challenge of the crown feature created an additional requirement for the cradle to provide building access between the structural columns. The cradle also had to be compact enough to be lowered between the building’s beams while still delivering the functionality required of a high-quality building maintenance system.
An essential part of achieving a practical and comprehensive facade access solution within these challenging parameters was the 3D building interface modelling provided by CoxGomyl. This was an important step in calculating and visualising the operation of the Building Maintenance Unit and ensuring it would function smoothly within the available clearances around the building perimeter.
As this new community grows and develops around Highwood Tower, the reliable and practical building maintenance system put in place by CoxGomyl will support the ongoing maintenance of the facade and important building features, helping to keep the tower in good condition for many years to come.
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