Shackerley provides bright white M&S facade
Shackerley’s SureClad® porcelain stone cladding system has been used to create the bright white facade for the Marks & Spencer store inside the Merry Hill shopping centre in Dudley, West Midlands.
The specification called for a lightweight facade system suitable for use on the external facades of the retail shell unit, within the main shopping centre building.
The project also needed a bright white, highly polished, and low maintenance facade material, that would deliver the clean and elegant style of the Marks & Spencer brand, and offer the creative versatility required for the facade design.
The architects selected our XXL format highly reflective pure white porcelain stone which we cut to size and fully prefabricated as installation-ready 3250 x1620 x12mm large format facade panels, including 57 bespoke reveals. All cutting, precision undercut drilling, fitting of all anchors, and attachment of all SureClad® bracketry to the porcelain stone panels was carried out within our ISO 9001 certified quality assured factory environment, enabling us to dispatch fully pre-fabricated and installation-ready facade panels to site, aligned to the installation schedule. This means that, in accordance with the requirements of ISO TS 17870-3, no cutting, undercut drilling, or anchoring of panel attachment clips or straps etc, was required on site, thus enabling safer, faster, more accurate and more consistent installation.
Using the extensive bespoke machinery at our quality assured factories, we were able to supply the facade panels with pre-drilled apertures, which were accurately located to allow signage to be fixed in place through the facade. This enabled both raised letters for M&S branding and summaries of in-store facilities to be securely attached to the facade support structure with ease and precision.
Designed by Whittam Cox Architects and constructed by Graham, this prestigious retail project is the latest in a number of Shackerley SureClad® facades we have manufactured for Marks & Spencer stores, highlighting our quality driven approach to sourcing raw materials and manufacturing facades that meet our high standards and the retailer’s brand requirements. The project also demonstrates the versatility of our SureClad® facade system, and the suitability of our porcelain stone materials for a wide range of environments.
The facade was installed using our SureClad® Hang On fixing system by Task Contracts, a specialist cladding contractor that has installed many Shackerley SureClad® facades.
