FOUNTAINBRIDGE, EDINBURGH

Project Info

PROJECT: Fountainbridge, Edinburgh

CLIENT: Pochin Construction

MARKET SECTOR: Student Accommodation

PRODUCTS USED: Metal Technology System 17 Curtain Walling and System 4-35 Windows

RED PROJECT VALUE: £1.2m

Requirement

The overall requirement for this student accommodation facility was 778 bedrooms in four different buildings. This was a significant development in the city centre. RED were tasked in providing the curtain walling and window package to meet the needs of the incoming students.

Background

With the quality of the higher education teaching facilities in Edinburgh, obviously demand for student accommodation is on the rise. This facility was earmarked as helping to reduce the waiting list for students wanting to take up residency. Pochin Construction were appointed as the main contractor, and having worked on number of schemes with the same Pochin site team in North West England, RED were asked to accompany Pochin to the Edinburgh site.

Project Comment

Fountainbridge was a fantastic project for RED, being our first venture into ‘foreign’ territory and our biggest scheme up until that point at £1.2m. RED worked in conjunction with long standing supply chain partners Pochin at pre-construction stage to provide a workable economic solution that met the high specification requirements.

A challenging project on site that took eight months to complete through a bitter winter and a very average summer to complete on time ready to welcome the intake of students in September. On that back of this project we have continued to work with Pochin on several schemes and are very proud to have added this to our portfolio of exceptional projects.

Michael Green Managing Director, RED Systems

Design

The design incorporated many different elements, and unique interfaces with other trades which were dealt with efficiently due to the close working relationship with the main contractor and their other sub-contractors. One of the challenges presented to RED was the wind load calculation – due to the height of the building, the funnelling factors from nearby buildings and the proximity to the cost. The effect on the structural elements of our curtain walling and the glazing was overcome by some innovative solutions by our design team, and having installed this project back in 2012 we can truly say that is has stood the test of time.