Rathbone Place is a mixed residential and commercial project. Measom Dryline have been involved in the residential portion of the development only. We were responsible for the drywall partitions, fire protection, fitting of the Profab access panels and doors and the installation of ceilings and sto acoustic ceilings.
The Sto acoustic ceiling is made up of Sto silent A-Tec panel fixed to the metal grid. This is then prepped and sprayed with the Sto Décor M acoustic finish to achieve the acoustic ratings. Due to the risk of overspray and healthy & safety, all of the spraying occurred overnight to ensure the safety of everyone involved and also to ensure this could take place uninterrupted to increase the productivity. Our design service was utilised to ensure the performance criteria for the building was met.
We took on design responsibility, encompassing the interface details with other trade contractor designs and ensuring all fire, acoustic and other performance criteria is met throughout the project. We also set out where all of the partitions are and made recommendations around the product and specification proposals.
The design presented us with several challenges; interfacing shadow gap abutments required a bespoke aluminium shadow gap plaster bead which we had specially manufactured to ensure the productivity of our team, the build ability of the apartments and the design intent of the architect. The ceiling coffer details and lighting shelves also presented us with some challenges regarding the achievement of high quality, clean and sharp finish. To overcome this, we had the lighting shelves purpose built offsite in GRG, which we then had delivered and fitted however, this only occurred in a few apartments as it did not work well. We then constructed them on site out of ply and plasterboard with a powder coated bead on the front edge to finish it. BIM modelling was utilised on the project to produce clash detection reports to resolve coordination issues with other trades.
Rathbone place is a large development containing a variety of luxury apartments with complex detailing in the flats, lift lobbies and walkways. Our works were completed better than the British standard, all the partitioning has been installed within a 2mm tolerance. Another interesting feature of this project was the air leakages of the flats, they had to achieve 3m3/(m2.hr) (typically, it is 5 m3/(m2.hr)) this was a challenge as you need to take in to account all the interfacing trades and not just the drylining. We have also had to ensure that the walls reach an acoustic rating of building regulations +5 this is to ensure that sound stays contained within the individual units so that residents are not disturbed by noise.