Offsite Fabricated Balconies and Balustrades from Sapphire Balustrades Deliver Project Success
Sapphire Balustrades fabricated over 100 balcony units, complete with stainless steel and glass balustrades, ready for fast track installation at one of London’s newest residential developments. The Regent in Gwynne Road, Battersea, built by the Galliford Try in partnership with its housebuilding division Linden Homes, features a contemporary façade with bolt on balconies integrated with stainless steel and glass balustrades.
Fabricated balcony manufacturing to The Regent’s exacting specification in production line conditions enabled Sapphire Balustrades to provide a fast track solution with a high degree of quality control. Galliford Try’s Project Manager comments: “Sapphire’s offsite solution meant that site time and associated costs, such as scaffolding hire, were minimised, and product quality was kept consistently high compared with completing more of the work on site.”
Over 100 projecting balconies for the luxury apartments were manufactured and assembled offsite by Sapphire whilst on-site works were being completed. With the building prepared the finished balconies, complete with timber decking and stainless steel balustrades, were delivered to site stacked inside each other to optimise lorry loads and reduce transport emissions and costs. In order to minimise offloading time in a busy area with restricted parking, Sapphire supplied the balconies pre-slung with lifting straps ready to be craned into position before being fixed to the Schoeck thermal bridging anchors pre-cast into the building structure.
Balustrades for The Regent’s balconies were fabricated from Sapphire’s Onyx stainless steel system with 10mm clear toughened glass infill panels to optimise views and increase light into the luxury living spaces. Handrails and balusters (uprights) were specified with a satin polished finish in marine grade stainless steel, designed to withstand potential damage from atmospheric corrosion. Sapphire uses this higher grade of stainless steel as standard for all the elements of its external systems to ensure installed balconies and balustrades retain their structural integrity and aesthetic appeal with minimal maintenance.
Balcony balusters were secured directly to the balcony frame, with fixings concealed by the timber decking for a clean, uncluttered look. As part of the project’s bespoke specification, Sapphire designed a special powder-coated trim to cover decking edges. In addition to providing a neat edge, the trim creates an aesthetic ‘shadow gap’ between the balcony frame and the decking _ one of the custom design features required by the architect as part of the exterior specification.
Summing up, Nick Haughton, Marketing Manager at Sapphire Balustrades, says the success of The Regent balcony project demonstrates Sapphire’s ability to provide innovative solutions that deliver an unbeatable combination of aesthetics, build quality and value. He comments: “Working closely with architects, structural engineers and building contractors, we can help bring a beautiful balcony or balustrade project to life in a timely and cost-efficient way for developers, main contractors and sub-contractors alike.”
With Sapphire invest a lot of time and resources into balcony innovation, since this project where Sapphire worked predominately in line with the industry norm, Sapphire have created a Glide-On Cassette system which has repeatedly achieved over 20 balconies in a day.
