Quartermile, Edinburgh

Edinburgh city centre’s landmark £750m mixed-use Quartermile development is benefitting from a highly effective curtain wall façade sound reduction solution thanks to Siderise.

The leading manufacturer of firestop and acoustic barrier insulation systems has provided a solution at the development for two new build apartment buildings which achieves the highest level of acoustic performance.

One of Scotland’s largest regeneration projects, Quartermile is located on the historic 19-acre former site of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Masterplanned by Architects, Foster + Partners, Quartermile is one of the largest and most comprehensive regeneration schemes in Scotland. Combining new build with selective refurbishment.

The development provides over 1,000 apartments along with 370,000 sq ft of Grade A office accommodation, 65,000 sq ft of retail and leisure space and seven acres of open landscaping.

Siderise was approached by Edinburgh based façade specialists Charles Henshaw & Sons for its technical expertise in acoustics to find a bespoke solution that would meet the acoustic performance criteria requirements for Quartermile’s Q20 – Q25 apartment buildings, all of which feature curtain walling.

The principal challenge was to achieve an on-site test value in excess of the 53dB DnT,w requirement for Building Regulations in Scotland. The target was 56dB DnT,w. For Henshaw this meant that the façade system, a potential weak point for flanking sound transmission, needed to achieve between 61-66dB Dnf,w flanking via the façade, past the floor slab areas, to exceed building regulations and provide the architect, client and project noise consultant RMP with a solution that offered high acoustic performance and a quality build. 

Commenting on the collaborative working relationship with Siderise, Design Director Donald Fraser at Henshaw said: “We had very informative and lengthy discussions with Mike Carrick of Siderise, who helped us in achieving a far better detail at the slab edge, which not only met with the approval of RMP, it also proved to be the optimum solution.”

Siderise recommended using its CW-FS 120 curtain wall firestop along with their AB10 acoustic matting solution and CVB/C10 cavity barrier solution. Used to improve floor-to-floor acoustic performance and form a simple, high performance sound barrier, the acoustic matt was held up with 40mm x 20mm x 1.6mm galvanised angles to stop it sinking. Siderise mullion inserts were also specified to further increase the acoustic performance at the critical mullion detail. 

“This comprehensive floor detail from Siderise has been used at Quartermile to good effect, with all the test data showing it passed and indeed exceeded the target ratio. It’s also extremely quick and easy to install,”  Donald Fraser, Henshaw

Involved in projects throughout the world and having manufactured acoustic and fire insulation products for more than 40 years, Siderise offers a large range of tried and tested product enhancements specifically developed for the façade industry. Designed to reduce vertical and horizontal sound transmission in curtain wall buildings, this range includes a choice of effective and proven sound reduction solutions that deal with all common sound path problems and are frequently used to assist in reducing flanking transmission between adjacent internal areas.