Commercial - Plymouth City Market

The multi-million pound redevelopment of the Plymouth City Market features a range of Smart Architectural Aluminium’s windows and doors

Located in the west end of the city, the market’s structure features an iconic wave-like roof and geometric design, elements which led to it being granted Grade II Listed Building status.

The last renovation of the market took place in the post-war years, and it was a feature of this recent programme that the architect from that time was invited to join the early consultation meetings and contribute to some of the key decisions – including the colour of the windows and doors. Some of the original sketch drawings were also shared and used in the design phase.

During these early phases, Smart’s technical team provided support to building consultancy services company, AECOM, developing solutions and design details that would be put forward to Plymouth City Council for approval.

One of the challenging aspects of this work was designing a permanent ventilation system for the top of the main façade, which features curved windows that slope back into building – the solution having to allow free movement of air while also keeping out the rain.

Smart’s Alitherm Heritage Windows were ultimately specified for the project, the system having been designed and developed to suit sensitive refurbishment projects such as this – often involving listed buildings. However, unusually the specification called for single-glazing and so Smart manufactured a new die to create a single-glazed bead for the system to meet the client’s requirement.

For the remodelled entrances, Smart’s Commercial Door system was then selected, with the entrance doors supplied in a polyester powder coated white finish and the Alitherm Heritage windows in a silver anodized finish.

The programme was not only technically challenging, given the building’s unorthodox shape and listed status, but also logistically complex. As it is such a busy market, the work was phased to keep disruption to both traders and the public to an absolute minimum, with a lot of installation work taking place outside the market’s normal opening hours.