Offsite Solutions wins £3m bathroom pod contract
Offsite Solutions, the UK based bathroom pod manufacturer, has been awarded a £3m contract by Wates Construction to supply 440 bespoke steel-framed bathroom pods for Anthology’s Hale Works development in Tottenham Hale, London.
Designed by Hawkins Brown Architects and due for completion in 2021, the scheme is a 32-storey, 107m tower which will house 279 apartments and 12,500ft2 of commercial space. The £82m development forms part of the multi award-winning Hale Village regeneration and provides a selection of studios, one, two, and three-bedroom homes for private sale and affordable housing. The striking tower will be a landmark for Tottenham Hale and is designed to achieve the highest design and environmental standards.
Offsite Solutions is manufacturing two pod types for the Hale Works – a bathroom and an ensuite shower room, which will be delivered to site in phases until summer 2020. Fully fitted out in the factory, the pods will have a dark wood-effect finish to the mirrored cabinet, open shelving unit and bath panel, a heated towel rail, large porcelain floor and wall tiles, LED downlighting, composite stone vanity top, overhead and hand-held showers, and contemporary square-edged, semi-recessed basin.
Commenting on the use of bathroom pods for this project, Chris Powell, project director at Anthology said, “As with all our projects, the bathrooms and ensuites for the Hale Works have a luxurious but understated feel with carefully-selected materials and a simplicity of design to achieve the quality of finish we are looking for.”
“The principal reason for specifying a pod solution for this project was to alleviate the issue of space restrictions on site for both materials and labour. Moving construction of the bathrooms entirely offsite and into a factory is a huge benefit for a tower scheme such as this. We found it very useful to visit Offsite Solutions’ factory and the advance manufacture of some pods allowed us to prototype the specification and benchmark quality.”
Paul Williams, senior design manager at Wates Construction, said: “Bathroom pods give us the benefit of a consistent level of finish, improved quality, and fewer materials and trades on site which mean less management supervision and the need for fewer site facilities. When specifying bathroom pods, we require consistency in the build-up of the pod walls and ease of access to M&E connections for ongoing maintenance. I am pleased to report that we have had a very positive relationship with Offsite Solutions throughout the design development phase.”
The design team at Offsite Solutions engineered a solution to allow connections to building services from the inside of the pods. The bathrooms feature a dark wood-effect bath panel which has a grooved detail that is aligned with the tile grid. A natural colour palette has been specified for each pod, with a full height feature wall in the shower or above the bath in light grey textured porcelain tiles with colour-matched grout and silicone for a seamless and high specification finish.
Offsite Solutions offers a large range of bathroom pods to suit different building types and applications. Options include steel-framed pods with porcelain-tiled finishes for high-end apartments, PRS, student residences and hotels; robust and low maintenance GRP composite pods for student accommodation, care homes, social housing and healthcare; hybrid pods for specialist projects, and award-winning demountable GRP pods for ease of installation in refurbishment schemes.