Award-winning Petrarch clad Ealing Filmworks

Capturing all the glamour and splendour of the roaring twenties

this latest scheme takes to the spotlight. For the restoration of this magnificent building, St. George and TP Bennett turned to a rainscreen which would not only project the right image, yet stand up to the most demanding requirements.

For a building with such status and heritage, both

St. George and TP Bennett opted for a rainscreen solution which would not only project exactly the right image, yet stand up to the most demanding requirements. As a mixed-use development, comprising 209 new homes overlooking a central square, lined with bars and restaurants, and an impressive double-height entrance foyer to the eight-screen Picturehouse Cinema, 'the biggest outside London’s West End,' it was vital that the chosen rainscreen could withstand numerous vying challenges.

Thanks to a comprehensive list of intrinsic qualities; including extreme weather resistance, durability, longevity, impact and graffiti resistance, as well as BBA, CWCT and NHBC 2021 certification, Petrarch Panels ticked all the right boxes and exudes pure elegance with its smooth Alabaster finish.

Petrarch Panel enrobed Filmworks wins Best Refurbishment project at this year’s Facade Awards

We’re extremely proud to share that The Filmworks has won the Best Refurbishment project at this year’s Facade Awards. This is the first year that Petrarch has personally entered the awards and we’re thrilled to have debuted as award-winners. We cannot, of course, take all the credit for this project; it is the result of a highly successful collaboration with Richardson Roofing, and talented architect tp bennett for our client Berkeley Group, St George.

The Ealing Filmworks by Berkeley Group, St. George

For a building with such status and heritage, both Berkeley Group, St. George and tp bennett turned to a rainscreen and framing solution which would not only project exactly the right image and retain the splendour of a bygone age, yet also stand up to the most demanding requirements. Blending elegant aesthetics and exacting technical standards; our Petrarch engineered stone rainscreen facade offered the perfect balance.

As a £100m mixed-use regeneration scheme comprising: 209 new homes, a central square, lined with bars, restaurants, and featuring a double-height eight-screen Picture-house Cinema (the biggest outside London’s West End) the demands and rigour demanded of the chosen building materials were to be immense.

About The Filmworks, in the words of the architect tp bennett

Given the delicate restoration and the fact that this was a conservation area, it was important that the chosen facade retained an elegant and natural aesthetic.

’A careful infill within an existing urban block, the scheme has been designed by tp bennett as a contextual response to the surrounding buildings in the conservation areas. Each perimeter facade is designed in a subtly different language, depending on the character of the particular street it is facing. The architectural language changes towards the interior, where the contextual red brick and stone have been complemented with a more contemporary materials palette, including dark blue brick with contrasting green-glazed brick inserts and bronze-coloured cladding laser cut with a distinctive, three-dimensional geometric pattern.‘

tp bennett are dedicated to ’creative reuse‘ as a practice – ’our ethos is to re-animate and adapt redundant historic buildings to reinforce a unique sense of place within each project. With our in-house skills and experience to draw from – as well as access to a strong network of conservation specialists – the practice is in a prime position to animate the past and inform the future.‘

Here’s what our esteemed installer, Richardson Roofing had to say about Petrarch panels and our level of customer service:

‘Petrarch were very easy to deal with during the purchase and logistics process, of getting the Petrarch reconstituted stone rainscreen to site. They are very responsive to queries, helpful and went out of their way to assist in any way they could. The team really do know their products well and were very helpful. Despite this being a somewhat difficult site with delivery booking requirements, Petrarch worked with us to optimise logistics for just-in-time deliveries.’

Krissy Dawson (Contracts Coordinator)