Introduction
Manhattan Loft Gardens is a 143-metre-high tower located in Stratford, east London, at the edge of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park where the 2012 games were held. An impressive double-cantilevered tower of 248 single and double-height loft apartments, two restaurants, a 146 room design hotel and three sky-gardens notched into the 42-storey building.
Dubbed as Europe’s most ambitious residential tower and designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) for Manhattan Loft Corporation this outstanding feat of imagination, architecture and engineering is clad in a serrated façade of terracotta and glass providing a luxurious high-rise experience designed to accommodate a vertical community.
Solution
Each living space; individually designed by Studio KO are elegantly proportioned and flawlessly finished, delivering breath-taking panoramic views of the city skyline. The design brief was to create a blind system that would blend with the aesthetics of the apartment in conjunction with a motorised control that would interface with a DALI lighting module. Additionally, the blinds would need to integrate into a channel allocated by the interior architecture to shade the narrow, floor-to-ceiling windows in each apartment.
Our solution was unique and fitted exceptionally with the client and architects’ vision. This was a concept that had never been attempted before and completely bespoke for this project.
After an extensive design process with the client and contractor, we were awarded the contract from Bouygues UK to proceed with the manufacture, supply and installation of 3335 blinds. Utilising our bespoke Blind Box system; designed, extruded, fabricated, powder coated and fitted to follow the shape of the serrated façade design which would house the Enviroscreen Sonata roller blinds with matching blackout and dimout fabrics. Bespoke child safety chain retainers were also created to match the façade design.
Due to the narrow width of the windows, a standard mains voltage motor would not be suitable, so the Vestamatic SMI 240v motors were used and customised to a shorter length with bespoke software and custom-built interfaces to allow bi-directional communication between the lighting control and the blinds.
In this project, all the electronically operated blinds were wired in by our specialist qualified electricians who connected all the blinds in each apartment back to the SMI box which was then connected and programmed to the home automation system.
Products Installed
Bespoke Blind Box
Motorised roller blinds
Manually operated roller blinds
Main contractor
Bouygues UK
Architects
Skidmore Owings & Merrill
Client
Manhattan Loft Corporation Ltd