John Wesley Rooms, Bristol
Heritage/Fire Rated
Initial Brief
The trustees of the John Wesley Rooms wanted to expand the offering at their museum by extending and refurbishing an external area behind a listed Chapel building. The proposal was to enclose the area with glass structures to maximise light form above as the site was bordered on 3 sides by tall buildings in the city centre.
The facility was to create a light modern and airy learning resource centre, library, café with atrium seating and a retail space. The requirements of the build were for the glazing to provide fire rated barriers to allow users to exit the building safely in the case of a fire as well as protecting the new building for the danger of a fire in an adjacent building.
Fire Rated Glass
Roof Glazing
Steel Windows
Floor to Cieling
Listed Building
Solar Control
Project
Firstly, the area was enclosed with a large glass roof constructed from an aluminium framed roofing system, double glazed with solar control glass and incorporated opening ventilators powered by electric actuators. This allows, at the push of button, the area to be ventilated to maintain a pleasant environment within.
An external vertical area between the new building and he existing chapel was infilled with a steel curtain wall system. This offered a fire rated solution providing a minimum of 60 minutes protection as well as allowing as much light as possible to flood in to the space. Due to privacy concerns of the neighbouring buildings, areas of the curtain wall were glazed using opaque glass.
A complementary steel window system was used on other elevations of the building to allow light in to the various rooms while providing 60minutes of fire protection.
Within the new building, floor to ceiling structural, fire rated glass was used to allow light to penetrate deep in to the building from the atrium while still providing a barrier to fire and a safe escape route. The glazing was frameless to maximise the vision area and silicone joints were used between panes to minimise visual intrusion
Finally, a frameless glass balustrade system glazed with toughened and laminated glass provided a low visual impact, edge protection to a high level viewing area.