The University Of Northampton’s new Waterside development will cater for 14,000 students and 2,000 staff. The 58-acre campus includes five low carbon buildings for teaching, leisure and student accommodation and is scheduled to open in September 2018.
The Senate Building was the first new building to be ‘topped out’ as part of the £330 million scheme. FP McCann secured the contract to supply and install hollowcore flooring and lift shaft lids to the Senate Building as part of the main structural steel build led by Shipley Structures. The design and build hollowcore package was undertaken by FP McCann’s in-house design team based. Hollowcore floor spans ranging from 1.0 m to 7.25 m and totalling 3,800 m² were installed on the four-storey building over a three-month period, as phased in by Shipley Structures.
The hollowcore system is 200 mm deep, has a fire rating of one hour and, as part of the overall elements contained within each floor, the thermal resistance of the hollowcore units is 0.167 m2 K/W. As part of the contract, FP McCann also completed all the wet work requirements and employed a specialist team from Beresfords Flooring to install ties at/over supports in order to protect the building against disproportionate collapse in accordance with the Building Regulations.
Commenting on the supply and fix contract, Chris Murphy Contracts Director of Shipley Structures said, “The hollowcore panels and lift shaft lids were supplied and fitted to the design specification and to the highest standard. With little extra preparation, the finishing contractors were able to apply paint and vinyl surfaces to the flooring surfaces.”