London City Island, UK

Real estate developer Ballymore has made an impressive redevelopment plan for the peninsula Leamouth London. The plan envisages the construction of eleven buildings, starting with four high-rise apartment buildings. The four high-rise apartment buildings are being built at an impressive rate. The buildings range from 11 to 18 floors and all four are built with masonry load-bearing sandwich panels. The London housing market is growing rapidly, but there is a shortage of construction workers on the British labour market. This generates demand for fast and compact construction methods with minimal staff. Hurks Prefab Beton BV produces the panels in Veldhoven. The Netherlands, then assembles them on site in London.

London City Island is Ballymore’s prestigious precast concrete development at Leamouth, E14. Using Hurks prefabricated façades illbruck were asked to provide the sealing solution to ensure an airtight structure and where necessary, a weathertight solution as well.

The Solution

Illbruck SP525 Hybrid Sealant – formulated and manufactured in Traunreut, Bavaria.

SP525 has been extensively used at London City Island as an airtightness seal internally sealing the gap between the wall to wall and wall to floor interfaces. Block J has a light coloured brickwork motif and standard SP525 sealant colours were not a sufficient match for the external weatherseal. Illbruck took on the task of manufacturing SP525 in a non-standard colour to match the brick-finish – RAL 1013 Oyster White and the results look great!

The Technology

So what is hybrid technology? In a nutshell, it is chemistry that offer an optimal balance of chemical resistance, elasticity, temperature resistance and other mechanical properties. SP525 is environmentally and user-friendly – silicone-free, isocyanate-free, solvent-free and VOC-free, it is easy to tool and work with and will provide a long-term seal to meet the design requirements.