Coopers Cross, Dublin

Dublin’s historic North Dock embarks on a new journey that has carefully curated public spaces, intelligent architecture, and a high standard the city has never seen. A Kennedy Wilson project, Coopers Cross, is the latest building innovation in the city of Dublin. It is a mixed-use campus which has the highest sustainability standard.

Coopers Cross brings together office occupiers, retailers, and residents with social, cultural, and business at heart. Sapphire Balconies was commissioned to design and manufacture balconies for the spacious apartments centred around the most significant public park in the North Docks.

Over 355 balconies were designed and manufactured. Our accredited installers are now installing them.

Being our first project in Dublin, it was ambitious. However, our innovative team at Sapphire Balconies ensured that the project was seamless.

Challenge

Coopers Cross project was started in January 2020, which was right at the start of the pandemic COVID – 19. The site was closed for almost three months and faced some significant delays.

Pre-cast concrete frames were extensively used in Ireland, whereas the primary trend was in-situ concrete in England at that time, meaning different sequencing and a different approach to the balcony anchors. The next biggest challenge this brought was designing and implementing the express frames over the building.

To add to the further complexity, the balcony drainage specification was to have pipe drainage, which is comparatively more expensive than controlled drainage.

Solution

At Sapphire Balconies, we ensured the pandemic caused no disruption to our balcony supply, so we continued the design process even when the site was shut down.

To resolve the post-brexit, mid-pandemic supply and support complexity, we set up a factory in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, to ensure there was no disruption.

Our in-house balcony designers, created an innovative custom anchor design to work well with the projects specific challenges and the sequence of the pre-case concrete frames.

Our innovative team at Sapphire Balconies had a live modular framework assembled onsite, in addition to our in-house R&D test house conducting physical testing of the specific assembly, which includes extruded and qualicoat powder-coated vertical bar for a seamless onsite process.

Our experts at Sapphire Balconies had discussions with the assigned certifier at Dublin and the city council to use controlled edge drainage instead of pipe drainage. We provided a site specific drainage strategy and ensured controlled drainage and sideways drainage was implemented for balconies over the main entrance to avoid nuisance dripping.

Installation Process

Step 1: Cast-in anchors were cast into the precast slab & incorporated thermal break connections offering superior rigidity to the balconies.

Step 2: RLD (Remote Locking Device) Cassette® balconies were preassembled offsite, including the balustrades, decking & soffits

Step 3: RLD Cassette® balconies were transported with balconies ‘nested’ making transport cost effective, lower footprint and safe. Balconies were pre-slung offsite ready for installation upon arrival.

Step 4: Once lifted into position, the RLD Cassettes® to the pre-erected support arms, before completing the simple mechanical fixings. The RLD enabled remote control of the balcony connection from within the building.