Shackerley delivers premium quality cladding for major North East development
Ventilated façade specialist Shackerley has supplied over 2100m2 of SureClad® ceramic granite cladding for a new hotel and cinema at the £30 million Feethams leisure development in Darlington.
Close to the town centre, and boasting a lively mix of restaurants and bars alongside the 80 bedroom Premier Inn and 9 screen Vue Cinema, the landmark Feethams leisure complex is integral to Darlington’s regeneration strategy.
The ceramic granite cladding was specified by Darlington-based Niven Architects who were keen to give the development’s tallest and most prominent buildings a high quality external finish. ‘Although we were working within an affordability envelope and needed to get a lot of building for our budget, we had no intention of compromising on quality or design,’ commented Peter Hodges, Director. ‘We selected Shackerley’s SureClad® ventilated façade system in contrasting colours and finishes for the Premier Inn, and a combination of render and SureClad® ceramic granite façade for the Vue Cinema.’
To bring a cohesive feel to the development, semi-polished cream ‘travertine’ ceramic granite was used on both buildings; paired with highly polished black panels on hotel elevations and with natural, unpolished grey on the cinema. ‘This offered a cost-effective solution whilst achieving a modern quality feel that fitted with our design aspirations,’ said Peter.
The Premier Inn’s demanding acoustic and thermal specification called for additional insulation to be fused into the building’s structural panels. Shackerley’s SureClad® Access system was employed to overclad this high performance insulation with ceramic granite, fixing through to the structural framing system.
Tony Blake, Commercial Director at specialist contractor Speedclad, said: ‘We’ve successfully installed Shackerley’s ceramic granite cladding on many projects now. It’s a high quality, well engineered product and the SureClad® Access system gives us complete flexibility on site. Being able to install panels non-sequentially makes it easier to set the building out, and if we need to leave any panels out we can come back to complete gaps later. The ability to demount and replace single panels in isolation also makes any maintenance work cost effective and convenient.’
‘The Feethams complex is an important part of Darlington’s regeneration journey,’ commented Paul Spensley, Project Manager at Urban & Civic Plc, the property development and investment company responsible for the project, ‘We’re very proud of the development and believe it would be difficult to find a better leisure scheme in the UK in terms of quality of finish and operator line-up.’
