Aesthetics meets lightweight construction at Croxley with Ketley

Croxley Business Park in Watford features a brick with an appropriate aesthetic that works well with a pallet of materials and its surroundings, courtesy of Ketley Brick.

Offering 700,000 square feet of office space across 13 buildings, the business park’s proposed evolution saw designs prepared for Grade A office buildings to star alongside new landscaping.

The architect for this project sought a light-weight construction system, where possible, so the building could be built quickly and efficiently. 

The design incorporated some textured brickwork, which would require a solid brick with Class A characteristics, while perforated bricks would be the most efficient material for the areas of plain brickwork beneath the textured sections.

It was vital the brick had the correct aesthetic to work well with the pallet of materials and other buildings on the site.

Ketley was the only manufacturer able to offer a solid brick, a perforated brick and an extruded brick slip all with an exact colour match in Staffordshire Brown Brindle. This was essential to the scheme, so that the different elements of the building were brought together.

The Ketley slips, which have ideal dimensional tolerances for the Gebrik cladding system, were delivered to Aquarian Cladding’s facility in Belgium to be cast into polyurethane panels. 

Julian Venus, of Aquarian Cladding, explained: “We made up the slips into panels of approximately 1metre square, encapsulated in solid insulation, and delivered them back to the site where they were added to the curtain walling system.

“The panels formed the brick element between the glazed areas without imposing too much weight on the façade.”

The strength and durability of Ketley Class A solid bricks made them the perfect material for textured brickwork. The bricks were articulated to project from the wall on one side, allowing the light and the shadows to play with the shape and colour of the bricks, creating interest in the stairwell sections of the building. 

The trio of different brickwork elements on this building meant the project could benefit from a light-weight modern construction system, whilst also creating a contemporary structure with interesting brick detailing. 

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