Fire resistant glazing at former Olympic media centre
June 2016

A project to transform the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics media centre into a creative hub is nearing completion, with fire-resistant glazed atriums supplied by WRIGHTSTYLE and Pyroguard fire glass.

Here East is a new campus for the creative and digital industries, transforming the former section on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park into 1.2 million sq ft of commercial space.

Wrightstyle supplied three full-height steel curtain wall internal atriums, to a total project size of over 800 m2, combining fire resistance to 60 minutes of integrity and insulation with a high level of acoustic performance, and a number of its unlatched 6050F1 doors to integrate into the atriums over various levels.

Supplying to Lakesmere, the leading roofing, cladding and facade specialist, one of the atriums is now part of BT Sport’s new broadcasting centre, while the rest of Here East will include shared workspaces, public areas and a range of bars and restaurants.

The ambition behind Here East is to create a community of offices, studio spaces and a data centre, alongside new facilities for University College London, Loughborough University and Hackney Community College.

Wrightstyle previously helped to transform the media centre for the 2004 Olympics and Paralympics in Athens, supplying over 41,000 m2 of steel glazing systems to create Golden Hall, now a retail centre. The company was also a supplier to the 2012 London main stadium and the adjacent ArcelorMittal Orbit, the 114.5metre tall sculpture and observation tower.

Pyroguard T-EI60/25-3 VI, a double-glazed fire resistant glass designed for use in steel profiles, was used for the project. The solution provides an hour of integrity and insulation from fire and optionally can be combined with counterpanes which offer additional performance characteristics such as solar control, thermal insulation, sound reduction, or attack protection.

The Here East project was complicated by the need to accommodate sloping head screens and, due to the size of the building, significant vertical and lateral movement. Wrightstyle’s design solution was to incorporate a specially-welded anti-racking configuration with bespoke brackets.

Wrightstyle worked closely and successfully with both Lakesmere and Laing O’Rourke, the main contractor, to comply with stringent supply chain management, as well as training the Lakesmere installation team to ensure compliance with the more complex requirements of the project.

Wrightstyle technical director Lee Coates said: “Here East is all about transformative legacy planning – a hugely imaginative project to create jobs, encourage creative entrepreneurship, and foster further education. Our advanced glazing systems allow ambient light to flood through the building, removing the more traditional internal walls that the designers saw as being barriers to networking and collaboration.”

Pyroguard’s UK Head of Project Sales Simon Ellison added: “The building-height internal atrium at Here East uses steel-framed curtain walling with Pyroguard fire glass. On the ground floor, there is a subtle continuation of the stunning ‘dazzle camouflage’ frit pattern that wraps around the facade of the building, whilst upper floors mix in black spandrel panels. This project demonstrates that the use of fire rated glazing does not require any compromise in terms of design or performance.”