Badby Park Nursing Home, Daventry: RåBuild construction

Challenge

Badby Park is a unique facility dedicated to neurological illnesses and disorders, providing specialist nursing and rehabilitation in the vicinity of Northampton. The two-storey development is divided into two wings. The Meadows Wing is a spacious, purpose-designed environment providing 24 specialised nursing care bedrooms with en-suites. Staff care for and support people in an environment designed to allow free movement throughout living quarters and communal areas, which include an enclosed courtyard and walled garden.

The Lantern Wing is a purpose-designed critical and palliative care environment of 17 bedrooms with facilities for relatives. The Lantern Care Centre enables those who require intensive nursing care to maintain their current status and maximise their quality of life through provision of 24-hour management and specialist critical nursing care.

Solution

100 and 140mm H+H Blocks were used with Celfix mortar throughout the site, including separating walls between accommodation units, and for the 215mm solid external walls, where the 140mm blocks were laid ‘flat’.

• 3.6N/mm2 100mm as Jumbo Bloks (610 x 270mm)
• 3.6, 7.3 and 8.7N/mm2 140mm Plus Blocks (610 x 215mm)

The ground floor was constructed out of solid waterproof concrete (raft construction) 225–400mm thick with 150mm of insulation and a 75–80mm liquid screed finish. Upper floors were made with pre-stressed concrete planks, 150mm insulation and 70mm liquid screed finish.

The expanded polystyrene thickness on the external walls was in the main part 130mm thick with a 5mm cream colour render finish. Once completed, the exterior walls achieve a U-value of 0.25W/m2K.

Outcome

Chacombe Park Developments Ltd has worked with Minett Group before, and was familiar with both aircrete as a material and the advantages it brings. Key to this large development was to keep the time on site as short as possible – hence the use of the fast RåBuild system to make inner shell watertight quickly, which enabled the interior trades to start work immediately. The building's use as a care home facility made acoustic insulation very important, both for the external skin and internal partitioning walls.

Summary: this project is a good example of the RåBuild method of construction with a solid wall approach, using large-format blocks and rapid-setting Celfix Thin Joint mortar. The Alsecco Basic 1 expanded polystyrene external render system completed the structure.