Dixon Jones Ltd has won the prestigious ‘UK Building Magazine Project of the Year Award, 2012’ with the redeveloped Grade 2 Listed Regent Palace Hotel. The redevelopment of the hotel retains the finest elements of the existing building as well as introducing new facades. The three streets surrounding the hotel include retail and mixed use units to reinvigorate the Quadrant which is now a prime area of Regent Street for the Crown Estate.
Corners of the original faience clad hotel building have been kept, and new faience has been introduced into the additional elevations using a variety of colours. By blending imperfect and perfect reflective surfaces, the new elevations make a play between the contrasting appearance of faience and glass. One of Dixon Jones’s concerns was that there was a service entrance needing to be secured with an unusually large height span for which there was no standard product.
The client had very demanding requirements for the product of choice – bi-folding speed gates which were to be used to secure the entrance of the main service and delivery yard. The specification was for aesthetically pleasing speed gates which are reliable and safe in functionality. Dixon Jones spent a long time researching the different solutions available and were finally directed to HTC Ltd and CoBaCo Barriers (a division of ATG Access) by their security consultants QCIC. The gates supplied by these companies had already been installed at various banks across Europe so were deemed to be more than appropriate for this project.
The brief for the speed gates were that they had to open and close rapidly, quietly and safely. The service yard is located opposite both a theatre and residential scheme. The clients wanted the gates to be kept closed at all times (important to stop members of the public wandering in off the street), so with the high volume of deliveries expected it was essential that the gates were really well engineered and reliable. Dixon Jones collected several references to satisfy themselves in this respect. It was also important that they could be acoustically sealed and thermally insulated, this being necessary to ensure adequate performance under Part L of the Building Regulations (loss of heat). Any noise inside the service yard also had to be contained. Finally there was considerable concern about safety aspects given recent high profile accidents involving automatic gates. Much discussion took place about the orientation, controls and cut-out devices in order to eliminate any possibility of an accident occurring. Finally the gates had to be aesthetically pleasing. The building is Grade 2 Listed and situated in a ‘high profile’ part of the West End. Dixon Jones worked closely with HTC Ltd to design attractive cladding to the exterior and used a bronze paint which harmonised the speed gates with the real bronze shop fronts surrounding the building. This can be easily maintained should the gates get damaged in use. Dixon Jones worked closely with the speed gate manufacturuers, HTC Ltd, and with the preferred installation company – CoBaCo Barriers (a division of ATG Access) in order to improve and adapt a product – to perform even better in these demanding circumstances. The speed gates are now fully installed and maintained under a customer care agreement with CoBaCo Barrier’s (a division of ATG Access).
More information contact:
Mike Davies – HTC Ltd
M: 07969 650394
Ray Barnett – CoBaCo Ltd
M: 07590 446050
