ST DAVID'S CENTRE, CARDIFF

Completed in 2009, the St David’s project is a £675M joint-investment between Land Securities and Capital Shopping Centres in the future of the city as a leading national and international centre. Being constructed in two concurrent phases, St Davids 1 focuses on the modernisation of the existing St David's Shopping Centre whilst St Davids 2 is a retail-led mixed-use project that includes new stores and luxury residential apartments.

With the involvement of Architects of the respected calibre of Benoys, Glenn Howells and Chapman Taylor, the development was constructed by Bovis Lend Lease with its various specialist trade contractors. These include The Marble Mosaic Co Ltd who were responsible for the detail design, manufacture, delivery and installation of the sandstone and granite faced precast concrete units that feature in the external cladding of various new and refurbished buildings for both phases, being work packages totalling some £3M.

The typical panelisation of the elevations is based on pairs of storey-height precast column facing units supporting 8m wide grid-width spandrel units that weigh up to 10T each. The units are being cast at Marble Mosaic’s factory in North Somerset using 50mm thick facings of Warthauer sandstone, supplied as dimensioned and finished facings by Zeidler & Wimmel in stones that are typically 450mmx1250mm, and generally with a 150mm thick backing of reinforced concrete. Each spandrel panel, many of which are curved on plan, typically includes 40 to 50 individual stone facings that are each secured to the backing concrete by stainless steel dowel pins. Prior to despatch, the back faces of the precast panels are being faced with insulation to enhance their thermal performance. The panels are being delivered to site on a just-in-time basis to suit site progress to be fixed using stainless steel fixings by teams of specialist erectors managed by Marble Mosaic.