Failsworth Secondary School, Manchester

Corus Panels and Profiles has supplied its Guardian® Composite cladding system to the £2 million-development project to provide new premises to which the existing secondary school can relocate. The new facilities opened at the end of February 2008, and now provide 1,500 secondary school pupils with an attractive and creative learning environment.

Kier Build – the main contractor for the scheme - comments: "The main structural frames for the scheme were originally designed to be built in insitu concrete. However, changing this to a hybrid structure – specifying steel for everything upwards of the first floor slab - guaranteed the successful delivery of this complex architectural design within the defined parameters of the defined build programme.

There are a number of key reasons for going down the structural steel route – namely speed of erection, lower embedded energy, and better strength to weight ratio. However in the instance of Failsworth School the key factor for this change was dictated by the complexity of the roof structures, especially on the sinuous front block."