Steni UK Cladding panels make appearance at the BRE’s Innovation Park.

Cladding panels from Steni UK have made their first appearance at the BRE’s Innovation Park, on a ground-breaking modular home that meets Level 5 of the Code for Sustainable Homes.

The Cub House, designed by property developer Charlie Greig of Cub Housing Solutions and exclusively manufactured off-site in the UK by FutureForm, had already been launched at this year’s Ideal Home Show where 44,000 people toured it over the opening weekend.

Now with the BRE nearWatford, the ultra-modern, two-storey Cub House features 180m² of Steni Colour fibreglass reinforced polymer composite panels, with a smooth, high-gloss, pearly-white surface of electron beam cured acrylic that is applied without the use of solvents.
They were specified by Charlie for a multitude of reasons including their aesthetics, off-site suitability, lowmaintenance, longevity and guarantees.

Designed to meet Lifetime Homes and Secured by Design standards, the Cub House is suitable for both social and private housing. It also has NHBC Building Control Type Approval and the necessary accreditation for mortgage lenders and insurers.

Complete with fitted kitchen and bathroom in 51m² modules that can be stacked on top of one another, it competes on cost with traditional housebuilding but demonstrates outstanding green credentials including its steel frame which is 65% recycled, super-insulated walls to minimise heat loss, photovoltaic panels to save energy and generate income from it, and rainwater harvesting and water saving devices.

Charlie said: “I wanted the Cub house to reflect, both visually and materially, an iconic age of new technologies and I liked the aesthetic qualities of the Steni product as well as its ability to meet the stringent regulations for Code 5 buildings. Their products are superior to any other in the market, require very little maintenance over the years and fade minimally in addition to a 25-year guarantee and life expectancy of 60 years. It’s a great product. I wanted the building to be tactile as well as unusual looking and to offer the potential of reflecting surrounding trees and light. We intend that communities of Cub Homes use the facility to project cinema on the side of the buildings in the summer, creating interaction through leisure. However, not all planning authorities will allow the Steni system where cladding materials need to match but the response from the public has been that where possible, this is how they would like to buy their homes.”

She added: “I had never used a Steni product before as I have come from the traditional building industry where bricks and render are the norm but Steni understand how factory-made homes can incorporate new cladding systems as an off-the-shelf concept. And they are developing other products that we hope to use, including a black diamond finish that sparkles in the sunlight. As well as the Steni Colour panels for the two-storey Cub House, Steni also supplied Colour and Nature panels to a total of five show houses in the Ideal Village at the Ideal Home Show. A pair of semis, a single-storey Cub House (clad in the same pearly-white panels as the two-storey version) and an executive home were each designed to meet the needs of a different part of the housing sector."