Issue 41 Spring web - Flipbook - Page 18
Steel windows meet
aesthetic aspirations
at St Albans Cathedral
Sympathetically connecting the grade I listed cathedral building to its 1980s chapter house, the new
welcome centre at St Albans Cathedral provides a visitor entrance, retail space, interpretation and
exhibition areas and other facilities. The architecture is respectfully understated with steel windows by
Steel Window Association member, Steel Window Services and Supplies helping to achieve the overall
aesthetic.
The context of the historic Norman cathedral site
demanded careful consideration of the materials palette.
The existing cathedral and chapter house buildings
feature metal-framed and leaded windows. It was felt that
the new welcome centre extension should complement
the existing fabric yet be easily recognisable as a modern
intervention.
In all, eight W40 composite windows and one W20
standard metal window were supplied, with installation
on site taking around two weeks. All the windows were
hot dipped galvanised and finished with a factory applied
powder coating in RAL 7016, anthracite grey.
Steel windows are a characteristic feature of many
early-20th Century houses and many are still giving as
good a service as the day they were installed.
The new extension is low-slung so as not to compete with
the massing of the cathedral building. An important
feature of the front facade is a triptych of vertical steel
windows which, at over 2.5m high, are mirrored on the
opposite side of the building.
Today, despite the arrival of new materials, steel windows
still offer excellent performance and value, while inherent
strength means that they are secure and vandal resistant.
For the past 60 years it has been standard practice for all
steel windows to be fully galvanized. They do not rust;
and with modern factory-applied polyester powder coatings, neither do they need re-painting for at least 20 years.
Perimeter roof glazing provides a light touch connection
between new and old while giving an airy feel to the
internal spaces. To achieve this, Steel Window Services
and Supplies provided a high-level window of 12 sections
measuring some 14m wide and 670mm high and another
of four sections measuring over 3m wide and 935mm
high.
One of the enduring attractions of steel windows, for
homeowners as well as designers, is their visual appeal.
Their slender sight-lines and elegant frame details
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Conservation & Heritage Journal
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