Dutch architectural concrete for London
Who would not wish that? According to Koen Waijers, the production capacity of the precast concrete factory of Hurks Groep located in Veldhoven near Eindhoven is fully booked until 2018. The visitor does not have any doubt at all about the words of the manager of the precast concrete element division, not least because of the hustle and bustle in the production halls.
Hurks Groep, a family-owned company, is celebrating its hundreds anniversary in 2016. Today, the company is one of the Netherlands’ leading construction groups with reference projects across European countries, too (s. page 38, “Concrete trees”). The group represents the overall cycle, from planning to construction and management of residential, commercial and special real-estate projects. In 2014, the group generated total revenues of 240 million euros with a workforce of about 700 people.
Hurks Groep divides its business into three divisions: “development and advice” includes all services relating to the planning of real-estate projects. The company attaches special importance to the fact that all planning proc-esses are approached integrally, meaning that all stakeholders, specific disciplines and trades will be involved right from the beginning. For planning and design of the precast concrete elements, the business division “development and advice” makes use of the 3D element presentation of Tekla BIM.
Know-how combined in an interdisciplinary way
The second business division “building and technology” includes above all construction works. As the company is specializing in fast and flexible construction as well as façades of precast concrete elements and steel or aluminum with a wide variety of surface finishes, there are the subdivisions “precast concrete elements” and “façade technology” included in this business division. The two production plants in Veldhoven and in Tilburg belong to the subdivision precast concrete elements.
The third business division is called “specialisms”. Within the organizational chart of the group this division includes “urban development”, “innovation centers and hospitals”, “high-rise buildings” and “transformations”. The departments of “specialisms” are intended to combine know-how and abilities within the said special fields in an interdisciplinary way.
Brickwork finishing
Due to the profound expertise concerning fast and flexible construction with precast concrete elements and regarding the production of architectural concrete, among others, Hurks Groep was commissioned with the construction of precast concrete buildings for four real estate projects in the British capital city of London, namely for London City Island, Royal Wharf, Leamouth South and Brentford in 2015. The four projects mentioned are also the reason for the fact that the group’s Veldhoven-based precast concrete factory is fully booked. In order to be able to meet the demand on the domestic market anyhow, Hurks Groep put the Tilburg-based factory, which had been shut down in the meanwhile, into operation again at the end of 2015.
A lot of large-scale sandwich façade elements are presently stored on the ground of the open-air storage facility in Veldhoven. They are provided with red and yellow bricks respectively, with the glazed aluminum frames for windows and doors being already installed. The completely prefabricated elements are shipped by truck and vessel from Veldhoven to the construction site in London.
Buildings of Ricciotti
Hurks Groep is selling the elements under the brand name “Pure Brick”. At the Veldhoven plant the sandwich elements are produced on formwork tables in a negative process. The concrete of the exterior shell is poured on the bricks which are placed in the formwork. The following layer is an air space, then the insulation and finally the concrete of the load-bearing shell.
For the construction of one building of the London City Island project, six workers need seven days to assemble the load-bearing sandwich façade elements, the interior walls and floors of one story covering a floor space of about 600 m². In the opinion of Koen Waijers, the manager of the precast concrete division of Hurks Groep, this speed is an unbeatable argument in favor of construction with precast concrete elements.
In the field of architectural concrete, the reference projects of Hurks Groep also include precast elements made of SCC or UHPC used for buildings, which are highly demanding in terms of architecture, such as the “Pont de la Republique” bridge in the French city of Montpellier completed in 2011 or the extension of the “La Boverie” museum in the Belgian city of Liége (s. page 38, “Concrete trees”); both projects are designed by the renowned architect Rudy Ricciotti.
Text: Christian Jahn, M. A.
