Park Central is a 20.75 hectare regeneration development in the heart of Birmingham. This once

‘no-go’ area is being transformed by Optima Community Association, Crest Nicholson and Birmingham City Council into a mixed use, mixed tenure, highly desirable community.
 

The works comprises of the demolition and clearance of existing housing stocks and construction of in excess of 2,000 new homes over the 13 zones set around 4,000m2 of leisure space and 8.5 hectares of open park land.

Over a 13 year period this once troubled area of Birmingham is being transformed into a highly desirable place to live. Work on this area is already increasing property values nearby and is acting as a catalyst for further local regeneration initiatives.

Funding for the Park Central initiative is being supported by the government and novel financial agreements. Through a Development Agreement with the lead developer, Guaranteed Essential Works are being carried out in the early years of the project which are then offset against Guaranteed Minimum Payment or Capital Receipts for land due to Birmingham City Council and Optima Community Association.

Also, 100% of the cash generated from land sales is being reinvested in the area for the provision of, for example, community parks, transportation and infrastructure works, affordable housing and community buildings.

Working in partnership with Crest Nicholson, Structherm Fastbuild is currently providing a robust modern method of construction for five blocks of five storey apartments.

 

Fastbuild is a prefabricated concrete building system which essentially replaces the brick and block load bearing walls. The system is made up of various standard components offering full flexibility in design.

Fastbuild has been used by Optima Community Association on three previous projects close to the Park Central site prior to this development. Thoroughly pleased with the results, Optima say that, ‘they are the only buildings we have built that do not suffer from shrinkage and cracking’.

Other benefits include savings on programme - water tightness is achieved earlier than traditional construction allowing internal fit out to begin sooner. Cutting construction times by an average of 40% compared to traditional programmes, also gives savings with preliminaries and overheads. With less joints than traditional construction, air tightness, sound and thermal properties are inherently good.
 

Design for services within the building is undertaken from the start of the project leading to neat installation on site. The Fastbuild system is very robust and there are no restrictions on choice of external finishes, for example, traditional brick or stone skin, rainscreen cladding, cedar boarding or render finishes can be easily achieved. A standard cavity construction has been used for the blocks built at the Park Central site, and the external skin is brick combined with rain screen cladding.

Fastbuild conforms to all the latest building regulation requirements, and is approved by BBA, Zurich and LABC for up to six storeys. It is deemed by the BBA to have a design life superior to traditional masonry and meets the standards required by Zurich and NHBC.

 

U-Values to wall: 0.3W/m2k Acoustic tests carried out on Block 51 show that the Fastbuild system has performed extremely well with results showing 61 dntw+ctr. This indicates workmanship and detailing is of a consistently high standard and gives a good indication of the performance of the remainder of the apartment blocks to be built.