A former post office warehouse occupying 2.3 acres just north of Oxford Street, has been transformed into the first new square in London in many years.
Powdertech
Rathbone Square is a lively new addition to London’s West End, with 242,800ft2 of Grade A office space, 140 private residential apartments and carefully selected cafes, shops and restaurants. Attractive arched walkways at two corners are lined with jade glazed ceramic tiles which contrast well with brass gates and posts at the entrances.
The design also features decorative curved “shadow gap” channels between the tiles, deep panels at the foot of the walkways and soffit style panels across the width forming a small ceiling.
The designers were keen to ensure colour compatibility between these panels and the gates and also between the various extruded, folded, curved and welded aluminium sections used. An excellent visual and functional finish was essential as much of the material is at eye level and below.
“Powdertech Anomatch achieves a similar appearance to anodising, enhancing the metal with a soft sheen,” explained Powdertech Director, Richard Besant. “The finish provides excellent colour stability and consistency between batches, irrespective of the origin or grade of the substrate metal and negates any differences in base material grain. Anodising cannot achieve this consistency across different substrates.”
After viewing several sample sections the client selected Anomatch 543, a light bronze shade with a metallic sheen to complement the entrance gates. Powdertech coated a total of 700m2 of straight and curved 118 x 100mm aluminium channel sections and access/channel cover panels and soffit panels.
