Project Description
A game of two halves
In 2014, Brighton and Hove Albion opened the American Express Elite Football Performance Centre, a distinctive, state-of the-art training and teaching facility in Lancing, East Sussex.
Since then, Albion have gone on to become the 48th club to be promoted to the Premier League, and the club continue to make a significant investment into developing their prestigious training centre.
This year, as part of Albion’s continued commitment to their women’s team, the club needed to expand in order to accommodate the women’s and girl’s facility, which would be housed within the same site as the men’s for the first time. The men’s first team would also benefit from the development, with improved gym facilities.
Kick off
Having worked with main contractor Buckingham Group on the first phase of the project six years ago, we were proud to be chosen to work with their team again as part of the overall £25m development.
Works for the second phase of the development were due to begin in early 2020, but the coronavirus pandemic meant that work could not start on the project until spring. Once on site, our scope was to install Kingspan Steel Framing System (SFS); SFS is one of our key disciplines in which we have over 20 years’ experience. The rapid-build cladding support system can be manufactured off site and delivered to site already assembled for increased project speed.
We also installed the Wetherby insulated render system, which allows large areas to be seamlessly rendered and provides a superb quality finish. Having worked with Wetherby for many years, across projects of all shapes and sizes, we know the product has an excellent life expectancy – the render on the existing building looks immaculate, even after six years.
Bob Deane, Wetherby’s Managing Director comments, ”We were delighted to be chosen again as one of the suppliers on this leading edge project. Our EWI offers a flexible solution in a wide range of finishes to best meet the client’s needs. The team at Eden Facades applied our render system, finished in white silicone render and the end result looks fantastic. It’s always a pleasure to work with the team at Eden Facades, you can rely on them to apply their years of experience to every project they work on.”
We were able to match the render for the new extension with the finish on the existing building exactly, ensuring the same pleasing aesthetic.
Another long-standing supplier of Eden Facades, Trueline, supplied the box surround and aluminium copings at Brighton and Hove Albion. The copings can be manufactured to meet each project’s exact specifications and used to enhance architectural features and provide all-weather protection. Martin Hromada, Surveyor at Trueline said, ”We’ve worked with Paul Michaelson on many projects and his eye for detail, and our design team, means that even on the most challenging jobs we can be sure of a first-class finish. This high-profile project was fairly complex, but we were able to work efficiently with the team at Eden Facades and we’re very proud of the final finish.”
Making it a hat-trick
With the main work on the second phase of the project completed at the end of summer 2020, we were back on site for a third time in October 2020 to work on the Hub, situated within the grounds.
Our scope at the Hub was again to install Kingspan SFS, with Cement Particle (CP) board. The CP board used offers sound insulation, water and frost resistance, and was supplied by RCM, one of our long-term suppliers of complete through wall solutions. Again, we will be installing Wetherby insulated render, with the prep work for the project on track to be completed by Christmas 2020 and completed in 2021.
Paul Michaelson, Eden Facades Construction Director, comments, “Of course, I’m proud of all the projects we work on, but this has been one of my favourites. Not only was it one of our first larger projects back in 2014, but also there were some quite complicated aspects to it, one being the niche groove cutting element the EWI required, for which we had to order in specific tools from Germany. I was responsible for overseeing the project, as well as being on site a lot. The whole team have worked really hard and it shows – the club looks great.”
Click here to read more about phase 3 of the project and see more images of our work at the hub.
Get in touch to discuss your next project with us – call 01268 744199 or email office@edenfacades.co.uk