The use of a combination of some 745 bespoke and thousands of standard cast stone products has given the Nova Building in Bournemouth the impact and visual appeal necessary for a prime site in the town at an affordable cost. The mixed-use building, erected on the former C&A site, utilises almost every available metre, resulting in a complex and challenging shape. The focal point is a tower above the main entrance with a rebated ‘panel’ at parapet level, which provides decorative appeal in an art deco style to match nearby existing buildings, such as the 1930’s Maples building. A wide range of cast stone products were employed including pier caps pillar caps and coping stones.

No 1 Coleman Street, a 20,000m2 commercial development in the City of London, has an exterior appearance that exploits the unique characteristics of the building’s form. The scheme uses polished precast concrete cladding panels configured in a geometric arrangement derived from the curvature of the building’s floor plate but expressed through a series of interlocking and alternating triangulated surfaces. In the design and construction of the façade, the complex geometric structure posed many significant challenges to Decomo, the precast concrete manufacturers, and led to many variations in the cladding details. No coping stones or pier caps were used in this unique building.

Concrete sprayed onto an expanded metal mesh was used for the central “cocoon” of the extension. The cocoon houses 17M entomology specimens and 3M botany specimens in 3.3km of cabinets.

The construction method was chosen as it reduced the cost of constructing the 60m-long, 12m-wide and eight storey high amorphous shape.

“We considered steel, precasting concrete offsite and insitu concrete but each steel mullion, precast panel or piece of formwork would have been different as there is no repetition,” said Arup associate director Ed Newman-Sanders.

See, concrete is good for lots more than making pier caps and coping stones!