Trent Concrete (Nottingham Contemporary Arts Centre)
Advanced Materials and Technology Textiles
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Description and aims
The new Nottingham Contemporary arts centre is based in the Lace Market area of the city. To add the defining character to the exterior of the £18m centre, the architects, Caruso St John, wanted to incorporate an intricate lace pattern based on a Victorian sample found in a time capsule in the city. The design for the fascia required the 1847 lace pattern to be enlarged ten-fold and embossed in repeat into concrete panels around the building. Trent Concrete had to create a detailed low-relief formliner (mould) to imprint the magnified and precise image of the Victorian lace sample into the panels of the fascia.
About Trent Concrete (Nottingham Contemporary Arts Centre)
Trent Concrete, based in Nottingham, is one of the UK’s leading specialist contractors within the construction industry. The company produces high quality, bespoke concrete architectural cladding and structural precast concrete for many of the UK’s most prestigious construction projects. All products are prefabricated at their site and the company continues to redefine what can be achieved in precast concrete, offering a complete precast concrete solution for off-site construction.
For many years Trent Concrete has been involved in some of the UK’s major landmark developments, including Barton Square at the Trafford Centre, Manchester and Lloyds Building in the City of London, designed by Lord Rogers.
How the project is being undertaken
It became evident that the traditional technique which was intended to be used to create the master mould (or formliner) would not be appropriate because of the level and nature of detail required. At this stage the design was passed to an expert in creative technologies at the University of Derby who proposed that a digital method of fabricating the master might be developed which would output a high definition mould.
Extensive experimentation was undertaken with a cocktail of software applications, digital scanning devices and materials. In a continual dialogue with Trent Concrete and the architects, design specialists at the University developed an innovative method which used lasers to replicate the exact image of the magnified pattern in a panel of resistant material. This master was then sent to the world’s leading formliner producer in Germany, who transferred the positive relief image into the final negative silicone casting mats to be used to produce the precast concrete panels.
Trent Concrete created 1100 square metres of lace-embossed panels, made possible by this new technique. These are now installed as the fascia of the building, creating the focal visual identity for the arts centre as well as a commanding new landmark for the city.
Impacts and benefits
By combining laser scanning and production technologies with advanced digital image manipulation systems, this project generated the most complex high definition concrete castings ever produced.
As a result, it is now possible to offer a High Definition (HD) formliner creation service, based on high definition digital imagery and 3D scans, enabling the architectural specification of bespoke precast concrete panels that have hyper-real bas-relief surfaces. This new method is able to produce an unprecedented level of intricate detail. The HD digital formliner system also promises compatibility with other fascia materials (e.g. ceramic), which may be fabricated into concrete composites.
This system is unique in enabling the production of architectural surfaces which can match contemporary expectations of pictorial realism or pattern. It gives full resolution rendering of digital imagery in bas-relief.
The building received extensive interest during construction and is attracting considerable international professional acclaim. It has been short listed for a Conde Nast Prize for Architecture and the collaboration between the University and Trent Concrete was also short listed for a Lord Stafford Award for ‘Innovation Achieved’.
The University of Derby will provide HD master formliner creation as a commercial service.
For more information about the project
For more information please contact Harold Convey on 01332 593109 or at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
University
Academic Lead
John Angus
Arts, Design & Technology (ADT)
Contact
01332 593109