Tower works is a new residential development consisting of 245 one, two and three bed build to rent apartments and duplexes spread across 4 blocks with ground floor commercial spaces. The project is on one of the most distinctive sites as you travel into Leeds City Centre due to the three prominent towers dating back to the 1860’s and will create a new pedestrian route through from the city centre to the Holbeck Urban Village Neighbourhood.
The 23,500 sq. ft scheme comprised of approximately 700,000 bricks including facing brickwork and a Surebrick brick slip cladding system across the four blocks, encompassing 2 buildings. These buildings wrap around a central open area containing 2 of the 3 listed brick towers and engine house buildings.
Principal Contractor, Sir Robert McAlpine, selected specialist brickwork contractor Marlborough Brickwork to deliver this project in 60 weeks with local craftsmen employed to help deliver this. Apprentices from the local area were employed and benefited from seeing the complexity of a project first hand and were able to transfer the skills learnt to their college work resulting in several completing their apprenticeships with distinctions.
Marlborough’s construction package consisted of the external façade of facing brickwork in half lap stretcher bond with a masonry support system, 2,700m2 of blockwork to the ground floor areas, cavity insulation, masonry channel restraints and ties, cavity fire barriers, fire rated insulated cavity closers, non-combustible DPC cavity trays and all associated masonry sundries items. The Surebrick brick slip cladding to the recessed panels is also part of Marlborough work package.
The brick slip system was one of the biggest installations for Surebrick at the time of the build and was met head on with a combination of teamwork and dedication from the Marlborough team. Complex engineering challenges led to innovative strategies which facilitated a quality installation of this modern method of construction. A dedicated training hub was set up on site with representatives from Surebrick, the brick supplier, Sir Robert McAlpine and Marlborough ensuring the 6-stage installation didn’t impact the overall programme. At all stages quality was controlled via Field View with rigorous external inspections from associated parties.
Quality control is a key aspect to Marlborough’s business, and our dedicated Senior Quality Manager led internal and external reviews at both tender and construction stage, held quarterly masonry seminars with representatives from numerous suppliers attending, carried out training for all levels of the business at regular intervals and ensured the certification of Fire Barriers through IFCC was conducted. This gave reassurance to Sir Robert McAlpine that we installed the specified products correctly.