Clever refurbishment using Manet Construct

Compute (Bridgend) Ltd, South Wales, have cleverly refurbished their offices in Court Road using the Manet Construct System from DORMA, which brings together two buildings with a modern design solution. The offices are housed in two detached properties, which are located within a conservation area and date from about 1900. Compute (Bridgend) Ltd and architect Peter Lee have created the appearance of a frameless glazed link between the two old buildings, consisting of a pitched glass roof and two vertical glass walls each incorporating a glass door with a glazed canopy above. The area acts as an enclosed lobby area for the two sets of offices and was designed, supplied and installed by specialist structural glass systems provider, Casu Consulto Limited of Leeds, a strategic partner of DORMA.

The Manet Construct system combines aesthetics and functionality beautifully and is designed to achieve connections between glass to glass, or glass to building structure, while at the same time meeting the demanding requirements of practically any structural glazing system. The Court Road refurbishment incorporates particularly heavy glass panels, which required channels to be cut in the stonework for a flush fitting. Also, the glass canopies have rain water drain channels in the form of UV-bonded glass edges to give a frameless appearance.

A major feature of the Manet Construct range is the Manet Spider, an intriguing design element that offers a choice of up to four arm variants and consists of an articulated hub joint with three-dimensional movement. This helps compensate for any building tolerances in the substructure by absorbing the load at all the fixing points. This proved particularly useful in this project in order to compensate for the stone building shapes and lines.

The key to the system is the single-point fixing (available in two sizes) which controls the transmission of tensile and compressive forces to the substructure and is constructed to both dissipate any stresses in the glass due to deformation and ensure optimum stress distribution under critical loading in the fixing area. As a result, large glass spans can be achieved.

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