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Products delivered
LockMetal supplied and installed a coordinated metalwork and cladding package, including:
• Hook-on facade cladding, including detailed panel layouts for constrained areas and multiple interfaces
• Hook-on soffits coordinated with openings, services, and adjacent finishes
• Perforated hook-on soffits with discreet supportwork and controlled sightlines
• Cappings to parapets, gable ends, and plant areas, including associated substrate and weathering details
• Balcony fascias integrated with balcony and rainwater interfaces
• Lift-overrun cladding coordinated around high-level structure and adjoining elements
• Cladding to flying beams, detailed to maintain consistent lines and finishes
• Associated flashings and trims, including later interface items behind blind boxes and between doors
• Bespoke rainwater-pipe adapters to resolve mismatched balcony gulley and rainwater pipe connections
Other projects
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Plot 18, Aylesbury Estate
Overview
Plot 18 formed part of the wider Aylesbury Estate regeneration in Southwark, London. The development consisted of two buildings with a library at ground-floor level and 122 homes above, together with a health centre and early-years building. The combination of residential, civic, and community spaces created a façade package with numerous transitions between materials, openings, services, and specialist systems.
LockMetal delivered a broad, sophisticated architectural metalwork and cladding package, featuring hook-on cladding and soffits, perforated hook-on soffits, parapet and gable-end cappings, balcony fascias, lift-overrun cladding, and cladding to flying beams. Because of this complexity, Plot 18 is a useful case study underscoring the importance of working with specialist facade contractors who understand the nuances and intricacies of cladding.
The solution
Working interactively and collaboratively with Vistry, LockMetal approached the project as a coordinated facade package focused on technical competence and design integrity:
• We developed the hook-on panel arrangement around the available space, adjacent structures, and openings, maintaining practical installation tolerances while preserving clean panel lines.
• Our team coordinated panel modules and joints, particularly where shadow gaps needed to align with door mullions to create continuous visual lines.
• Behind perforated hook-on soffits, we developed a neat, controlled support framework, paying close attention to sightlines to maintain the architectural vision.
• Reviewed interfaces as a coordinated package, issued drawings and technical queries, and clearly identified the information required before fabrication.
• When balcony gulley outlets installed by another trade did not suit the 100mm rainwater pipes, we fabricated bespoke reducer adapters to resolve the local interface without rebuilding the wider detail.
• Developed a substrate and weathering solution for demanding capping requirements, using 12mm Y-wall board, 0.5mm fire-rated EPDM, primer, adhesive, taped joints, sealed edges, and sealed masonry fixing points.
The challenge
Plot 18 combined a complex mixed-use building with a facade package that relied on careful coordination across multiple interfaces:
• Several hook-on cladding areas were small, constrained, and geometrically challenging, meaning a standardised approach would not have achieved the required finish.
• Continuous coordination required between aluminium panels and adjacent concrete, GRC, door, curtain-wall, roller-shutter, lighting, signage, precast and rainwater packages.
• Perforated soffits created a visual challenge since secondary steelwork, rails, and fixings were visible when viewed from below or at an angle.
• Cladding had to seamlessly fit around concrete, doors, curtain walling, roller shutters, lighting, signage, light boxes, precast elements, and rainwater packages.
• Late interface information risked delaying drawing approvals, manufacture, and planned scaffold removals, so facade decisions had to be made and managed early.
Results
LockMetal helped translate a demanding architectural concept into coordinated fabrication and installation information, supporting a clean, controlled finish across a complex mixed-use facade.
By treating aesthetics as a technical requirement, the team protected the visual relationships between components, from shadow gaps and door mullions to perforated soffits, from GRC interfaces, balconies, and gable ends to lift overruns and flying beams.
Our design and project teams carefully reviewed how separate packages met, responded to later-emerging interfaces, and identified missing information before it delayed fabrication or installation. Where details were incomplete, such as the roller-shutter interfaces, we defined what was needed from the relevant suppliers and turned broad coordination challenges into manageable design decisions. This helped support the smooth delivery of an interface-heavy cladding package.
The result was a facade package that was beautiful, buildable, and safe – with LockMetal applying the same care to hidden supportwork as to the visible panel finishes.
Interface-heavy cladding and architectural metalwork for a mixed-use regeneration scheme.
Client
Walworth Homes Ltd
Location
Southwark, London
Package size
£450k