One of the UK’s premier housebuilders has switched to specifying Magply boards as part of the wall construction, within the exterior elevations for an apartment development in a prime West London location, chosen in place of the plywood alternative because of the MgO boards’ outstanding physical characteristics and other practical benefits.
Royal Warwick Square is a development by St. Edward – a joint venture company owned by M&G Investments and Berkeley. The scheme is part of the Warwick Road Masterplan that is providing a thousand new residences, a new school and landscaped spaces across seven acres of Zone 1 land in the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
With work near to completion, Watford based PIB Contractors has been installing the Magply boards, supplied through MP Moran of Watford as ‘pattresses’ or backing blocks for fixings, within the light gauge steel wall panels. The pattresses are sized and positioned in line with a pre-designed layout: facilitating the hanging of fixtures and fittings like shelves, radiators and kitchen units.
St. Edward is amongst a growing number of sector specialists turning to IPP Ltd. and its Magply range where high performance panel products are required to meet specific technical challenges.
In the case of Royal Warwick Square, a member of the project team contacted IPP Ltd. during the early design stages, leading to the Sales Manager for Magply delivering a full technical briefing on the versatile product, which has found many similar applications, particularly in Ireland and on student accommodation buildings across the UK.
The Operations Director for PIB, Danny White, commented: “What you see on the Royal Warwick Square site is the use of 20mm Magply in lieu of a timber – plywood – pattress as this has a very good pull-out capacity similar to the properties of plywood and is non-combustible.”
Backed by BDA Agreement certification, Magply MgO boards present a fire-safe and environmentally friendly alternative to conventional plywood or OSB products. Additionally, the unique production process keeps the chloride content to just 0.01%, enhancing both stability and long-term durability. The different thicknesses of panel are also widely used as a substrate board for the direct application of proprietary render systems, as well as for flooring and flat or pitched roof build-ups.