Tribeca, Kings Cross

Kings Cross has been under development for more than a decade with commercial and residential structures dominating. Now there are new life science labs being built by developers Ardmore. Their architects Bennetts Associates took inspiration from The Arbour at Walthamstow and pushed to use Site Strocks using the abundant London clay being extracted for the piling and deep basement on site. HG Matthews took the clay and using the new tooling invested for the Site Strock project to process it to the desired mix. This was the first project to properly test off-site material for compression and flexural strength, compression and flexural strength of the clay mortar and fire testing. Passing each hurdle then led to 6m high non-loadbearing walls in the basement to line the building rather than more concrete blocks. Clay blocks mean a better air quality, better humidity performance with good thermal mass. The use of Site Strocks at this scale and by such big developers and contractors really showcases the issues faced by these materials and the solutions found in using them, some provided by HG Matthews, others found through discussion with the contractor. For instance the blockwork sub-contractor was unsure about how to build with clay block and clay mortar so we invited them to the factory for a demo build along with architect and contractor representatives. It soon emerged that this was an easy and non-controversial process and the work commenced. Later bike racks were installed using the standard fixings, short screws intended for use with concrete. After initial problems the contractor found longer fixings with some help from us and the bike racks were fixed. Building on this scale with site material in central London is ground breaking in more ways than one, it starts to open the door for lower emission, circular economy materials to be used anywhere and everywhere.