Architect: Taylor Young
Type of works: supply and installation of Textura fibre-cement cladding.

Marley has supplied Textura fibre-cement cladding for the redevelopment of Kendal College in the Lake District.

The decorative rainscreen cladding helped create a vibrant and textured appearance to the facades of two new buildings. Textura was installed on pods protruding out of the main entrance block and on the Construction and Heritage Centre. Since completion the development has won numerous awards, including SCALA (Serving Construction & Architecture in Local Authorities) Civic Building of the Year Award.

Taylor Young architect’s specified Textura in five bespoke colours to create an eye-catching building envelope. The panels were manufactured in the factory approved RAL colours of Champagne, Salmon and Sun Yellow for the Construction and Heritage Centre and in Stone Grey and Dark Brown for the entrance block pods.

From the design stage through to completion, Marley provided a complete sample, advice and support package. For example, providing a quick turnaround on colour swatches for the specifiers, and realistic leadtimes for the installers, enabled the selection of bespoke colours without delaying the schedule.

Sue Chadwick, Project Architect at Taylor Young, said: “Textura from Marley really adds personality to the two buildings, and the fact that we could specify them in any RAL colour allowed us to realise our original design vision. We find that Textura creates a cost-effective and a durable rainscreen facade that matches very well with more traditional options.”

Textura has a beautiful aesthetic, highly glazed granular finish that provides a low maintenance, robust facade to the buildings. The surface also contains small glass beads, which allows rainwater to ‘pearl’ across the face of the sheet, reducing the possibility of staining.

The Textura panels were fitted by Speedclad Ltd using a structural adhesive system involving bonding the panels onto a combination of timber battens and aluminium support framework. This system incorporates a cavity that enables any moisture penetrating through the joints in the panels to be effectively removed by the provision of an uninterrupted ventilation path.

To ensure the buildings remain energy efficient, rigid phenolic insulation was installed behind the Textura panels to improve thermal performance.

Textura is resistance to mould growth and fungi, which helps give a minimum life expectancy of 50 years.