A new digitally-enhanced smart office building in London has been protected with Sherwin-Williams’ FIRETEX® FX6002 coating.
Sherwin-Williams’ coating FIRETEX®
FX6002, the winner of a Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation, has been selected to protect a new smart office building in London. The project, located at 33 Charterhouse Street opposite to the future Museum of London, was the first in the UK to achieve the ‘Outstanding’ rating for the design stage under BREEAM, the world’s longest established scheme for assessing, rating and certifying the sustainability of buildings.
The 200,000 sq. ft scheme provides over 10 floors of technology-enhanced office space, featuring an integrated digital platform that will improve the building’s operational efficiency. The sustainability measures adopted included low carbon materials such as eco-friendly cement-free concrete, solar PV panels and a biodiverse green roof.
FIRETEX FX6002 offers up to 120 minutes fire protection and long-term corrosion protection to the steelwork. Moreover, it can be applied off-site and direct-to-metal without the need for a primer or topcoat, enabling paint applicators to coat and transport steelwork in a matter of hours rather than days. This results in less downtime, fewer bottlenecks and faster project completion.
“For us, having a product that turns up on site as close to how it left the factory was a massive part of the choice. Not only does this save man hours on site repairs, it reduced the amount of paint being used on site thus allowing faster progression of handovers to follow on trades,” stated Marios Antoniades, the Associate Director - Structures Lead for main contractor Mace. “In addition, the final product required a lot less repair before leaving the factory which contributes to a much better aesthetic finish for even a ‘basic’ finish. With more projects having exposed soffits to reduce carbon footprint, the higher quality finish is something that convinced Mace to push for FX6002.”
“As well as the programme and man hour benefits, the low VOC emissions of the Firetex FX6002 made it an obvious choice in an exposed ceiling solution where air quality is such a priority for prospective tenant,” added Pavlos Clifton, Senior Development Executive at asset owner Helical.
FIRETEX FX6002 is also being used an intumescent coating of choice on steel buildings throughout Europe.