Beetham Tower, Manchester
Beetham Tower is a landmark £150 million development at the junction of Deansgate, Great Bridgewater Street and Liverpool Road in Manchester city centre. Located on the Victorian railway arches near the site of Manchester’s Roman settlement, the skyscraper is widely regarded as a symbol of the recent regeneration of Manchester.
Manchester-based firm Ian Simpson Architects designed the building, and consultancy firm WSP Cantor Seinuk were the structural designers. When main contractor Carillion completed it in early 2007, the 50 storey Beetham Hilton Tower was the tallest living space in Europe, visible from ten counties and occupying 528,000 square feet of space, comprised of 218 premium apartments and a 279 room five star Hilton Hotel.
Property Developers the Beetham Organisation won the prestigious architecture prize of Best Tall Building of The Year Award at the 2007 international awards ceremony in Chicago.
Reference was made to the tower’s distinctive structure and shape, its clear links and visual connectivity to Manchester city centre, and for the 25m tall crystalline blade which tops the 169m structure - providing a buffer zone from the sun for the glass façade.
The Beetham Hilton Tower is built entirely using post-tensioned flat slab concrete construction. Two concrete cores measuring 8m by 9m with shear walls running from front to back extend through the full height of the building. William Lea provided screeding for all the flooring throughout the entire structure, using Isocrete K-Screed. In addition to greater durability and impact resistance, the reduced water content of the semi-dry cementitious K-Screed eliminates the cracking and curling that often occur with conventional substrates such as sand and cement, and only requires 1 week to dry per 25mm applied.
William Lea has over fifty years experience in screeding expertise and are licensed applicators of K-screed. It is their expertise and ability to install large areas of screed in a short amount of time coupled with the product’s fast track capabilities that make them the preferred company for large developments with heavy traffic.
