Leviat chosen to provide high performance fixings for the feature balconies at Royal Arsenal Riverside’s 10-storey residential centrepiece

Leviat’s Halfen HIT-ZDX and HIT-HT3 symmetrical thermal break connectors have been chosen to provide high performance fixings for the feature balconies at Berkeley Homes’ new Royal Arsenal Riverside’s 10-storey residential centrepiece.

Towering over the historic Royal Arsenal site, once home to some of the UK’s largest munitions factories, Building 10 is a stunning new high rise residential block, providing 112 luxury one, two and three bedroom apartments in the heart of the bustling new Royal Arsenal Riverside community on the banks of the River Thames.

Situated in the busy south-east corner of the Royal Arsenal Riverside site, overlooking the central piazza and shops of Windsor square, the building has been carefully inserted within the footprint of the Grade 2 listed former Royal Carriage factory. It’s eye-catching contemporary frame and bold brickwork façade - designed to incorporate areas of retained historic brickwork - are offset by expansive feature balconies, helping to create a stunning modern 21st Century exterior that blends seamlessly with the site’s historic industrial character.

The Challenge 

To help maximise outside space for the luxury apartments, Architects, Corstorphine & Wright, specified cast-in-situ concrete balcony slabs, fixed directly from the main concrete floor slabs and supported on the exposed steel skeleton to honour the building’s industrial origins and historic surroundings.

The challenge, therefore, was to find a connection solution that would enable the construction of an unconventional hybrid concrete balcony slab permanently supported by universal steel columns. The system would have to be capable of supporting higher thermal movements, high shear and axial and lateral wind loads, particularly at the building’s corners.

Mark Smith, Technical Director at Leviat explains; “In addition to the structural demands, the project had to satisfy Berkeley Homes’ demanding environmental targets. Achieving high thermal performance for the building envelope was essential, which meant selecting a highly insulated connector capable of minimising thermal bridging across the external wall. At the same time, the solution had to deliver exceptional fire resistance to support the project’s overarching building safety objectives.” 

The Solution

Leviat was approached to provide a balcony connection solution that would meet the client’s demanding performance criteria, whilst being quick to deliver and simple to install.

The company’s Halfen technical team drew up a comprehensive specification based on new Halfen HIT-ZDX and HIT-HT3, high performance stainless steel thermal break connectors that incorporate a rockwool insulation cassette to replace concrete across the joint and thus minimise heat transfer across the façade. A series of reinforcing bars penetrating the insulation are specially engineered in reduced thickness stainless steel, facilitating fixing in the heavily reinforced and congested floor slab, and minimising penetration points through the wall structure to further improve thermal performance.

The Outcome

Specialist contractors, Joseph Gallagher, used a total of 500m of Halfen HIT-ZDX and HIT-HT3 connectors to support the balconies throughout the ten-storey building.

Specially designed to support complex loads, the new connectors enabled the 160mm thick elongated balcony slabs to be cast simultaneously to the main floor slab and the outer steel skeleton, making installation easier and saving time by simplifying the casting operation.

The outstanding thermal bridge characteristics of the new connectors, which have been tested and certified by the Passive House Institute, also contributed significantly to Berkeley Homes achieving its BREAAM target for the new building.