Excelsior Academy

Architectural Masonry News

16 May 2008

Hi-light Masonry helps PFI Project stay on course

The ability of Forticrete Architectural Masonry to provide the benefits of dense masonry and meet HSE manual handling guidelines has seen the company win its third successive private finance initiative (PFI) schools contract in the North East.

Some 16,300 m2 of the company's Hi-Light cellular masonry, in a range of colours and finishes, has been specified by architects, The Howarth Lichfield Partnership, for the 1,800 place Newcastle Excelsior Academy being created in Norland Road, Scotswood.

Hi-Light masonry meets the HSE guidelines, as set out in Construction Sheet 37, for a single man repetitive lift, the 140mm block is under 20kg.

Ian Raper, area sales manager at Forticrete said of the project: "We had to meet a number of Key Performance Indicators in order to win this contract. It is a project of considerable size and scope, and so ensuring the development works to budget and schedule is critical.

"Our Hi-Light masonry means only one blocklayer is required to lift and carry each unit - whereas most products designed for this purpose exceed the HSE limit."

Forticrete is supplying contractor, SURGO Construction, with a range of Hi-light products, including some 1600m2 of Fairface masonry in Bathstone and Hamstone colours, and more than 300m2 of steel grey Textured masonry. The project also required special bullnose units for a number of columns within the building. A new mould was obtained by Forticrete for creating these blocks and allowing their future specification on other projects.

The Newcastle Excelsior Academy development project is a joint initiative between the Government's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) and Academies programmes. The build started on 23rd January 2007 and the academy is set to open in September 2008.

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