Outside Comfort Zone SPRI NG 2020
BUI L DI NG DESI GN, I DEA S & SOL UTI ONS FOR YOU A ND YOUR CL I ENTS
Above: A Triple Tarnhow Dome Free Standing Timer Canopy at Ty Mawr Holiday Park, Clwyd.
Welcome to the Spring 2020 edition of Outside Comfort Zone - your quarterly dose of building design solutions for you and your clients. This months' issue brings you a selection of solutions to help your clients adapt to the new normal and a big Kier project we recently completed in five phases over six months. We also discuss the big upgrade UK holiday park owners are making to the facilities on their sites.
Able Canopies?Services During the Coronavirus Pandemic Able Canopies remains open for business and will continue to do so unless advised otherwise by the UK government.
Please continue to send your enquires to sales@ablecanopies.co.uk or give us a call on 0800 389 9072.
Our staff and customer?s safety are of the upmost importance to us, so our office staff are working from home and our installation teams continue to install our canopies while keeping a safe distance at all times while following stringent hygiene procedures we have put in place. Our phone lines are therefore still open and we are here to take your calls and emails. If you have a project with requirements for a canopy or shelter, please do send it over to us as we can still provide with quotes, estimates and answer any queries you may have. We can also accept orders, book in installations and carry out site visits and installations while adhering to social distancing requirements. www.ablecanopies.co.uk | sales@ablecanopies.co.uk | 0800 389 9072
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Solutions to Help Your Clients Adapt to the New Normal The world that we live in is changing rapidly and while some restrictions have been lifted by the UK government for England, we are far from slipping back to normality. In order to protect the people in our country, we need to continue to enforce social distancing in all settings and situations where possible. That means adapting workplaces, schools and retail settings.
Additional space is something that many of these settings now desperately require. We have a range of products that can provide the extra space without the need to construct extensions or additional buildings which are out of your clients' budgets. Many of our canopies can be constructed to large lengths and widths (many feature unlimited lengths) which ensures your
clients can add the space they require however big or small. We?ve seen an influx in calls for canopies particularly from those in the education sector for applications such as to extend their dining space into the outdoors, covering outside hand sanitation stations and walkway canopies to cover people while they queue outside. Read on to find out more?
3 Ways a Canopy Can Help with Social Distancing I?ve been thinking about ways that the human race may change once this pandemic is over and how we will view things differently. I think most of us have started to appreciate the little things we used to take for granted, and I also think we?ll all be a little more hygiene conscience along with a lot of other changes. So, from this, I feel like we may want to keep a little distance from strangers even once it?s deemed okay to mingle because let?s be honest there?s lots of flu?s and bugs we can catch even when COVID-19 is no longer a threat. Canopies are therefore are a great way to continue social distancing whilst still leaving the house. Here?s why: 1. They provide more useable space all year round If your client is a restaurant for example, they may choose to spread their tables apart which
will cause them to lose a number of tables in the process. However, a canopy enables them to use their outside space all year round, more so with the addition of outside heaters and lights. They will be able to offer diners a space to eat outside in the fresh air rather which some may prefer once the government?s social restrictions are lifted. 2. They provide a space for people to queue spaciously We, the great British public are famous for how we queue however, we would always queue a little too close to strangers and I feel that may be coming to an end through our own choices. An entrance canopy or walkway canopy provides visitors with a dry area to queue which saves them from huddling together to gain shelter from the building resulting in a spacious queuing system for all. Our canopies
provide not only shelter from the rain but also a cooling shade from the sun which is much needed on those hot summer days. 3. They create designated areas To save visitors from wandering around your clients grounds, entering the wrong buildings or entrances, they can provide entrance canopies with signage to direct customers to the correct areas for their visit. This also stops any unwanted visitors wandering into private areas that are strictly for staff only. Another benefit of creating a designated area is that it stops visitors or children (within schools), from wandering around if they know they are to stay within the vicinity of the canopy. Canopy side fills can help to create a much more designated area too.
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Cover for Outdoor Hand Sanitation Stations The general public?s hygiene has improved significantly since the beginning of the Coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak which can only be a good thing. However, encouraging, or reminding others to wash their hands is still necessary, particularly in educational environments with children from a young age right up to their teens. That?s where our hand sanitation canopies come in; if your clients are having outdoor hand washing stations installed to ensure everyone that enters the building washes their hands first, a canopy will encourage them to do so. When the weather is cold and rainy, the public may be inclined to rush washing their hands and therefore not wash them thoroughly however, if the hand sanitisation area is covered with a canopy, it will encourage them to spend the full 20+ seconds required to kill any possible germs before entering. You can visit www.ablecanopies.co.uk/s/education/ to view our range of hand sanitation canopies however, most of our canopies and shelters are perfect for covering hand washing stations depending on the design your client requires. Because our canopies are available in a choice of designs including wall mounted and free standing, plus a selection of construction materials such as timber, aluminium and steel, are we sure to have the perfect solution for your client?s requirements. Roof options also include polycarbonate, toughened glass, corrugated steel and tensile fabric. Canopies can be used for more than just to cover the hand sanitation station, they can also provide cover to people that are queuing and waiting to enter the building as well as washing their hands. Providing them with shelter makes the experience much more comfortable particularly in very hot or poor weather such as rain and wind. Our canopies, including the ever popular Coniston Wall Mounted Canopy are available in any length, this ensures that your clients will be investing in a canopy that not only covers the hand sanitation area, but also covers those queuing at a safe distance to keep everyone safe and sheltered.
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Extending Dining Capacity to Implement Social Distancing at Schools With the prospect of children gradually being introduced back into the classroom, schools are looking for ways to extend specific spaces such as those where children will gather. One of those places is the school dining hall. You may think the most obvious option to achieve this would be to extend your clients building however, their budgets may not allow for such a cost, not to mention the timeframe would too lengthy. A much more cost-effective option that could work perfectly with the time frames would be an outdoor
dining canopy. This allows you to double, triple or even quadruple (or more) your clients allocated dining space so you can ensure their pupils enjoy lunch with the required 2 metre distance for social distancing. Our canopies including the Coniston Wall Mounted Canopy, Welford Dome Free Standing Canopy and Tarnhow Timber Free Standing Dome Canopy are very popular within educational settings and many of the 1000's of schools we?ve installed at already use them for the purpose of extending their dining area into the outdoors.
If you are worried whether a canopy is suitable for the colder months, then worry no more, our canopies can be supplied with canopy side panels to block driving wind and rain and we can also install secure roller shutters to keep your dining furniture safe and secure out of hours. To keep the area underneath well heated and lit when the weather is not so bright and warm, we can add heating and lighting to the canopy. This almost transforms the canopy into a whole new room without the cost and disruption of an extension.
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Northstowe Education Campus, Cambridgeshire - Kier Products: 2no. Grange Junior Free-Standing Canopies ? Both 9.12m x 2.125m 2no. Coniston Wall Mounted Canopies ? 8m x 3.75m and 15.3m x 3.75m 1no. Bespoke Kensington Free Standing Canopy ? 18.49m x 3.59m - 8.21m 1no. Bespoke Pergola ? 11.10m x 3m 1no. Grange Junior Free Standing Canopy ? 13m x 2.2m Canopy Frame Colours: All Anthracite Grey RAL 7016. (The pergola roof slats were Interpon Y2316F, Interpon YW371F and Interpon YW386i.) Special Requirements: To facilitate the installation of sprinklers onto the underside of the Kensington and Coniston (installation carried out by Kier). Installation Date: Five phases spanning September 2019 ? February 2020 Contractor: Kier Architect: Livingston Eyre Associates
The Brief Livingston Eyre Associates and Kier were working on a 44 million-pound project for the Cambridge Meridian Academies Trust which aimed to create a through campus, linking a nursery, primary school, SEN school and secondary school providing 1,800 school places.
entrance canopy for the SEN school to provide a sheltered area for the school busses to drop off and pick up their SEN pupils. All products were standard products excluding the Kensington and pergola:
connected so they would fit perfectly. The two Coniston Wall Mounted Canopies also featured fire protection sprinklers on the underside of the roof which again, were installed by Kier.
The development included a number of canopies to provide shade and shelter throughout the campus grounds and to provide designated cycle parking areas to encourage cycling to school. We were originally contacted by an Architect at Livingston Eyre Associates in April 2018 when the project was in the planning stage. Able Canopies had been specified for the canopies and they contacted us to check that the sizes stipulated were feasible. The Solution Within the project, Able Canopies were specified for the supply and installation of seven canopies which included three Grange Junior Free Standing Canopies with Sheffield Cycle Racks to provide sheltered cycle parking adjacent to the drama courtyard and within the school square; two Coniston Wall Mounted Canopies to provide covered outdoor areas for the reception and early years pupils to play and learn outside; a bespoke pergola to cover an outdoor stage for impromptu entertainment within the schools community square; and an
The Kensington was modified from our regular design as it was a combination of our dual-pitch and mono-pitch Kensington free standing canopies. The maximum standard projection of each gull-wing is usually 3m however, the gull wings on this canopy were required to be 4.4m and 3.5m, making them much bigger. We therefore re-engineered the structure to accommodate the additional span and our structural engineer calculated the new design to ensure it was structurally safe. The Kensington Free Standing Canopy features fire protection sprinklers which were installed by the contractors. We therefore worked with them to ensure they could be installed to the underside of the canopy without comprising the function and construction of the canopy. This ensured they knew exactly where they could be
The Pergola was a completely bespoke product. The architect had originally designed a steel frame however, the cost of a steel frame didn?t suit with the budget, so we designed an aluminium alternative which was much more cost effective, yet didn?t compromise the quality, longevity or durability whatsoever. The frame was designed using an adaption of the goalposts we use to transform our Coniston into a free standing canopy and the roof slats were an adaption of the bars that we also used in the construction of our Coniston canopy. The Installation The canopies were installed in a total of five different phases spanning six months. This was to ensure our works could fit in with all other contractor schedules as
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it was a large site with lots of construction in progress. Because the site was ever changing due to the completion of each area, the access points were also changing so it was imperative that we attended regular site meetings to ensure we could access the areas needed for each phase and that there was enough access and space for our equipment. The installation of each canopy was completed on time without any issues, and both the architect and contractors were pleased with the result. We installed our final phase; the Grange Junior Free Standing Canopy with Sheffield cycle racks within the school square in February 2020 and the completion of the entire project is due at the end of May 2020.
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An Upgrade of Facilities for UK Holiday Parks Holiday camps in the UK may seem like a thing of the past to some however, for the majority they are an annual tradition and are best loved by young families and elderly couples. That?s why holiday park owners are always modernising their parks to keep them fun, fresh and safe. Like many restaurants or hotels, the shade and shelter structures at holidays parks tend to consist of collapsible, temporary umbrellas that do not provide protection from the rain and cannot be used in medium to strong winds. They also need to be replaced regularly as they do not have a robust construction. However, we have seen a significant increase over the last few years of enquiries to replace these umbrellas with permanent
structures that provide protection from both the sun and the rain and can be left outside and used all year round, whatever the weather. Our Tarnhow timber canopies are our most popular canopy range within the holiday sector and a perfect example is the 19m x 7m Tarnhow Curved Free Standing Timer Canopy that we installed at Parkdean Resorts Warmwell Holiday Park near Weymouth, Dorset in March 2020. The management at Warmwell Holiday Park were looking to replace their umbrellas to provide their holiday makers with a permanent shade and shelter structure that offers high UV protection, rain protection and looks fantastic in their fun, and
friendly holiday parks. Their much-loved guests can now dine outside or enjoy a beverage in the sunshine whilst keeping protected from the sun?s harmful UV rays, and because the canopy covers 133 square metres, even more guests can enjoy the benefits. We also installed a 17m x 9m Tarnhow Curved Free Standing Timber Canopy at Camber Sands Holiday Park in Camber, East Sussex, a 17m x 9m Tarnhow Dome Free Standing Timber Canopy at Mullion Holiday Park in Helston, Cornwall and 3no. 9m x 5m Tarnhow Dome Free Standing Timber Canopies at Ty Mawr Holiday Park in Abergele, North Wales, all of which are owned by Parkdean Resorts.
Above: 9m x 5m Tarnhow Curved Free Standing Timber Canopy at Camber Sands Holiday Park in East Sussex
Above: 3no. 9m x 5m Tarnhow Dome Free Standing Timber Canopy at Ty Mawr Holiday Park in North Wales.
Left: 9m x 5m Tarnhow Curved Free Standing Timber Canopy at Camber Sands Holiday Park in East Sussex Above: 19m x 7m Tarnhow Curved Free Standing Timber Canopy at Warmwell Holiday Park, Dorset.
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SPRI NG 2020
NEW Product Brochure If you would like a copy of our new full product catalogue then let us know on 0800 389 9072 or sales@ablecanopies.co.uk and we will get one out in the post to you. It contains all you need to transform your outside space and keep those cycles secure. As well as our canopy systems, the brochure contains information on all our accessories and upgrades ? such as side fills, heating and lighting and colour options. You can also download your copy from www.ablecanopies.co.uk/brochures.html
Essential Information for Architects & Specifiers Our dedicated specifiers site includes all the drawings, technical specifications and recent images that you could need to help your project. These user friendly details allow you to quickly compare different systems, roofing options and materials, enabling efficient, informative specifications to be made. Our whole product range is available allowing you to decide on the best solutions for walkways, dining areas, shelter, sun shade or all year round weather protection. For your own personalised access, contact us using the details below.
Committed to Service Quality We are committed to the highest standards of customer service, which is independently audited wherever possible. - External assessment of our quality through our achievement of ISO and CHAS requirements means that our service is delivered to a consistently high standard - We have achieved Constructionline Gold status ? meaning our approach to health & safety, environment & waste and equalities & diversity meet recognised standards - Each project will have a thorough site survey to ensure your requirements are fully understood and the installation can be completed with the minimum disruption - At all times our expert team is available to answer questions and help you with project timing and planning
For Advice, Consultation and Information: Call: 0800 389 9072 | Email: sales@ablecanopies.co.uk Follow us on our social sites to view new product info and recent installation photos for inspiration: Twitter: @ablecanopies Facebook: @AbleCanopies
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