Members of the UK Green
Achilles Building Confidence
Midsummer Place
Visual and safety for multi-storey car parking
With the development of Midsummer Place, a new shopping centre at the
heart of Milton Keynes, Levolux has demonstrated the versatility of its
products by producing a bespoke louvre system which acts as a visual
and safety screen around two levels of multi-storey car parking.
Two louvre designs were adopted, one for the top open air third storey of the car park and another for the enclosed second floor – shops occupy the ground and first floors. Levolux extruded new profiles for the project and these form a major external feature of the building with all the aluminium and steelwork polyester powder coated in grey.
A Bespoke Solution
On the second floor the key considerations were ventilation, visual screening and safety. To provide sufficient free air flow within the external envelope to comply with regulations, it was necessary to develop a bespoke aerofoil fin.
The horizontal teardrop shaped fins fulfil both air flow and aesthetic considerations but the gap between them would potentially have posed a danger, as children might climb through, so tension wires were introduced to stretch across these spaces thus reducing the gap to 100mm.
a visual feature
Acting as a visual feature around the perimeter of the top floor car park parapet, a second bespoke fin assembly was developed and is bolted to 150mm square section steel posts mounted on pre-cast studs. Within the fins themselves are recessed down lighters which create an illuminated line round the top of the building to ‘sign’ it from a distance and also act as safety lighting within the car park.
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| Architect: | G.M.W Partnership |
| Products used: | Aluminium Fins |
| Ventilation Louvres |