CONTROL OF SOLAR GAIN, HEAT AND HOTSPOTS AT ICE CREAM MANUFACTURER

Kalwall used to create a calm, diffused daylight interior controlling solar gain and heat

PURPOSE OF THE WORK:

Franks Ice Cream is a long-established wholesale manufacturer supplying specialist Ice creams to supermarkets and the NHS. This new facility, a Gelateria and Innovation centre, was developed to provide a bespoke small batch production facility for product testing to ensure their existing manufacturing lines can be maintained and not interrupted by research and development. The new facility also provides the opportunity for small batch production.

WHAT WE DELIVERED:

This is a landmark manufacturing facility for a small industrial estate in West Wales. It’s a beautiful building, designed to entertain high value clients and develop products in a purpose built, state-of-the-art facility. Structura designed and delivered the curtain walling, Schuco entrance doors and complicated Kalwall ‘lightbox’ meeting room on the first floor. Our consultation was also key for the solar heat gain design of the premises. Following the production of daylight modelling and glare pattern analysis reports, the client followed our advice to utilise Kalwall within the glazed screens in order to minimise the heat build up within the production space. Installing this in our RAICO + Kalwall system allowed us to provide vision glazing where required and utilise Kalwall translucent panels where solar control was preferred, maximising the daylight in the space without the associated heat build-up.

BENEFITS:

• With the free daylight modelling service, it is possible to determine optimal light transmission and help with positioning on a building to prevent glare issues and provide interior lux levels
• Kalwall can be used to control solar gain, glare and hotspots. With the ability to cast evenly-diffused daylight deep into interior spaces, it eliminates the needs for solar control, blinds or curtains
• Even on cloudy days, the interior is bathed with natural daylight, which means less artificial lighting and, because Kalwall is highly insulating, HVAC costs are reduced
• It offers the highest protection in terms of wind-borne debris and resistance to impact, abrasion and point load and is also very secure