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The Macallan’s Pioneering New Distillery Installs Flowcrete UK Flooring The new distillery for luxury whisky brand The Macallan has installed a variety of Flowcrete UK floors to create surfaces that would reflect its visual identity and maintain the functional properties required to produce this iconic Scottish spirit. The development consists of five cells that seamlessly blend into the surrounding countryside as undulating, greenroofed earthworks. Four of these would house the brand’s production operations (three still houses and a mash house) and one would be the visitor centre. The flooring in the production cells will likely face spillages of hot, corrosive by-products alongside point loading from heavy equipment, frequent foot traffic, intensive cleaning, impacts and more. To ensure that the surface would maintain a functional, visually attractive finish, 5,570 m2 of the polyurethane system Flowfresh HF LT was applied. A sleek grey colour was chosen to match the production area’s industrial aesthetic. Visitors to The Macallan’s whisky tour would not just experience Flowcrete UK flooring in the production areas, as its screeds and decorative finishes were also applied across many other parts of the site’s visitor centre and distillery tour. Before the resin finishes could be applied, 3,669 m2 of Isocrete K-Screed and 4,890 m2 of Flowscreed Industrial Top were used to create robust screed layers that would provide level and reliable platforms for the decorative coatings. The main internal tourist routes and viewing gallery were then coated with the fast curing, methyl methacrylate (MMA) resin floor topping Flowfast Quartz Structure. Areas that are usually just functional spaces have been reimagined into visually stunning works of art in The Macallan’s new facility. This is especially true of the barrel room (or cave privee), where the sherry cask maturation of the distilled spirit takes place. This has been turned into a private cellar that displays each cask like a gallery exhibition, putting the visitor in the centre of a semi-circle of back-lit barrels. 303 m2 of the selfsmoothing epoxy system Peran SL in a glossy black finish was applied to create a sleek floor that would reflect the cellar’s lights and the outlines of the barrels above in a dynamic, eye-catching manner. www.flowcrete.co.uk
Howe Green Creates “Specials” For Centre Of Collaboration And Creativity Howe Green, one of the leading brands in the specialist horizontal access market, has supplied products to the £150 million National Automotive Innovation Centre (NAIC) being built on the University of Warwick campus. The distinctive 33,000m2 building, with state of the art equipment and world class facilities, will provide a centre for research, innovation and technology development in the UK automotive sector. Academics, engineers and designers will be brought together under one roof to create the technologies and products of the future. Howe Green supplied around 400 floor access covers for use throughout the centre to provide safe and easy access to building services concealed under the raised flooring. The Howe Green bespoke 7500 Series Medium Duty Stainless Steel covers were specified by award-winning architects Cullinan Studio. The specification required that the covers were manufactured with a reduced depth, instead of the standard overall frame depth of 75mm. The reduction in depth enabled the access covers to be infilled with the same flooring used elsewhere in the raised floor system - calcium sulphate floor panels, with the stone pre-bonded. The floor access covers were installed by Lindner, the market leader in raised flooring systems. Calcium sulphate floor panels are ideal for sustainability as they are manufactured almost exclusively from recycled materials – an important consideration for the NAIC which is aspiring to a BREEM excellent rating. If you would like to find out how Howe Green can provide safe access to concealed services for your next construction project please get in touch, call 01920 463 230 or visit www.bilcouk.co.uk.
