St Benedict's Senior School
Architect: Buschow Henley
Contractor: ECL
Product: [Fibre C]

When it came to providing a smooth, seamless cladding aesthetic to a new £6.2 million building at Ealing's prestigious St Benedict's Senior School, it was going to take a secret fix, and SikaTack Panel Adhesive in conjunction with Cladding Solutions [fibre C] glass fibre concrete cladding was the perfect, cost-effective solution.

A winner at this year's RIBA awards, the new school building replacing a dated 1960s structure and houses an assembly hall, chapel, exam hall, music school and more. Making it stand out within the school, it features 1,000m² of CSL's ivory polished concrete panels specified by architect Buschow Henley, held securely in place by SikaTack Panel Adhesive - without a single nut or bolt spoiling the façade.

"The cladding needed a smooth concrete aesthetic, which matched the large amount of internal exposed concrete," stated Guido Vericat, Project Architect at Buschow Henley, "and for that we needed a secret fix. This meant there would not be rivets all across the façade, and we could achieve a seamless look."

The impressive [fibre C] glass fibre concrete cladding which was supplied by Cladding Solutions, who work closely with Sika, developers of the secret fix adhesive system. The adhesive system emabled the cladding to be firmyl held in place, without any fixings showing. Utilising elastic bonding rather than metal fixings, it allows for higher stress and movement, eliminating the risk of panel failure.

The work was completed by specialist cladding contractor ECL.