Clever cladding from Corus creates beacon out of budget hotel

A new budget hotel in Cambridge features innovative and colourful high-quality steel façades thanks to some clever cladding technology from Corus.

The speculatively-built, five storey hotel is the work of local architects CMC, acting as executive architect, and rising architecture firm Proctor and Matthews, which won a limited design competition set by the developer and Cambridge Council planners. What make this building special are its high quality wall cladding and design detailing, and the clarity of thought that has gone into its contrasting east and west façades.

The east facing elevation features vertically-oriented coated steel cladding panels in three different shades of blue. One of these is a standard Corus Colorcoat® PVDF pre-finished steel in Bahama Blue, the others are "specials", produced using the Flexicoat® system on one of Europe"s most advanced flat-bed powder coating lines at Corus Colorsteels in Cross Keys, South Wales. This has allowed the architects to get the exact colour required - something that, until recently, has been prohibitively expensive for small quantity runs.

The coating line can coat flat or shallow-formed metal fabrications in both small-batch and high-volume production runs. The production system is capable of meeting the most demanding of surface quality standards and gives designers something they"ve previously never had; the ability to design buildings with coloured steel facades in any RAL or BS colour, with no minimum order requirement for the steel.

A bespoke colour matching service is available and most metal substrates can be coated, including stainless steel and aluminium. Surface coatings range from smooth through to coarse textures, metallic finishes, dual colours - even a special anti-graffiti finish.

Panels on the hotel"s east elevation are vertically integrated with corresponding storey height windows and, of particular interest, full-height vertical light boxes that emit a welcoming orange and blue glow at night. All panels are randomly placed in what the architects call "a concerted attempt to avoid regimentation".

By deliberate contrast, the hotel"s west facing elevation features horizontally-oriented panels, three per storey height, and all measuring 3710mm x 850mm. This time, two types of steel and two types of timber-faced panels are, once again, randomly spaced. The pre-finished steel panels are a mixture of Colorcoat Celestia® by Corus pre-finished steel in Orion colour, and a brushed stainless steel finish.

Window "blinkers" stand out from the facade at 90 degrees and are finished in the same three blue shades of coated steel as the east façade, giving what architect CMC describes as a "peeled back" effect. Unlike the artificial night time illumination of the east elevation, the randomly positioned steel panels here provide what Proctor and Matthews describes as "natural, intermittent reflections of the warm setting sun".

Façade engineers AME Façades and cladding contractor Proclad worked closely together to design a precision adjustable panel system that allowed the building"s high quality architectural detailing to be fully realised.