Secure Training Facility: Fire-Safe Rainscreen Recladding

Stone-Effect Rainscreen Cladding · Secure training facility

Project photographs

Stone-Effect Rainscreen Cladding

Secure Training Facility: Fire-Safe Rainscreen Recladding

The external facade of a secure, operational training facility was removed and replaced with a non-combustible, ventilated rainscreen in a sandstone color, delivered around live training and strict security.

FacilitySecure training facility
Starting pointOutdated external facade
SystemStone-Effect Rainscreen Cladding
Project routeFacade removal and recladding
Stone-Effect Rainscreen Cladding project

Project detail

The brief

An operational training facility needed its entire external facade removed and replaced with a modern rainscreen built from non-combustible components. The nature of the site meant strict security procedures, work arranged around live training, and full compliance with current fire safety rules for external walls.

Project detail

The rainscreen system

The new wall is a ventilated rainscreen. From the building outward:

  • Substrate: the existing high-density concrete block walls.
  • Support: an adjustable rainscreen carrier system, fixed with mechanical facade anchors.
  • Insulation: about 4¾ in of non-combustible mineral wool rainscreen slabs.
  • Cavity: a 1 in ventilated air gap that lets moisture escape and air circulate behind the panels.
  • Fire barriers: open-state cavity barriers rated for 120 minutes, which leave the cavity open for ventilation in normal use and close it in a fire.
  • Outer panels: stone-effect panels made from compressed basalt, in a sandstone color, fixed with color-matched rivets.

Project detail

Why these panels

The panels combine the look of natural stone with the performance of an engineered board. They were chosen because they are:

  • rated as limited-combustibility;
  • weather-resistant and low-maintenance;
  • lightweight, which made installation quicker and safer;
  • recyclable;
  • available in a sandstone color that suited the site.

See insulated wall and rainscreen systems for how rainscreen walls are built up.

Project detail

Working on a secure, live site

The facility stayed in use throughout. Access depended on security clearance, and the work was coordinated every day with the site’s staff and adjusted around training schedules and restricted areas. The site is exposed, so the plan also had to absorb spells of bad weather. TCR stayed in constant contact with the site’s managers and delivered the work without interrupting training.

Project detail

Outcome

The facade was completed on time and within budget. The client praised the quality of the system and the way the team worked within the demands of a complex, high-security site.

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