Kingspan Kooltherm K15 Rainscreen Board has been installed as part of a new, multi-million pound development in North London, providing 222 new affordable dwellings along with commercial space and a new primary school.

Constructed by main contractor Galliford Try Partnerships on behalf of Newlon Housing Trust, the development is situated on the site of a former rubber factory and forms part of Haringey Council’s 20 year plan to reinvigorate the Tottenham area. The high quality development includes 100 shared ownership homes within a 22 storey tower, called Rivers Apartments, and a further 122 intermediate rent apartments spread across three blocks of between 5 and 9 storeys.

All four blocks feature a concrete frame with rainscreen cladding to the tower and a mixture of brick and rainscreen cladding to the lower blocks, and to ensure excellent building fabric performance, KSS Design specified Kingspan Kooltherm K15 Rainscreen Board. The premium performance insulation can achieve thermal conductivities as low as 0.020 W/m.K and was the first insulation board to achieve LABC system approval for use as a thermal insulation layer in rainscreen cladding systems, helping to streamline the checking and approvals process.

For the River Apartments Gypcraft installed 60 and 100mm thick Kingspan Kooltherm K15 Rainscreen Board within a steel frame infill system. The boards have been successfully tested, in accordance with the performance criteria set out in BR 135, in a range of insulation thicknesses and with a variety of cladding finishes. They were therefore accepted for use above 18 metres in the building. To complete the building envelope, Gypcraft then fitted an aluminium composite material façade.

The same thicknesses of Kingspan Kooltherm K15 Rainscreen Board were also installed within the steel frame cladding system of the other three blocks. To complement the surrounding architecture, these lower level blocks were mainly clad in brick with areas of brick slips.

Daniel Blackburn from KSS Design commented:
“In order to meet the energy requirements of the London Plan we used a fabric first-approach in combination with a district heating plant. Kingspan Kooltherm K15 Rainscreen Board met the fire performance requirements for the high level buildings and helped us to achieve the target U-values across the properties without eating into the indoor living space of residents.”

Kingspan Kooltherm K15 Rainscreen Board features a fibre-free core manufactured with a blowing agent which has zero Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP) and low Global Warming Potential (GWP). The product has been assigned a highest possible BREEAM Green Guide summary of A+ and is certified ‘Very Good’ under the demanding BES 6001: Responsible Sourcing of Construction Products standard.