A 44,330 sqft Warehouse offering an Energy Performance Certificated ‘A’

Horncastle acquired land for this and other buildings close to the M62 at Howden, back in 2003. The land comprised a Greenfield site zoned by the local authority for employment land use.

Planning approval was granted for a range of industrial and warehouse buildings with ancillary offices, over the whole of the site and upon receipt of the approval works commenced on the estate infrastructure.

As a new employment location we knew that a degree of speculative development would be required to set the development tone and get the site commercially underway. We also set out with a vision that the type of occupiers sought by Horncastle would share a desire to operate from a development in a green and sustainable location.

From the outset Horncastle set out to ensure that this first building would stand apart from other similar development sites not only by having great visual impact through high quality design but perhaps more importantly through a specification that achieved excellent Energy Performance.

This building therefore became an exciting test bed to explore what could sensibly be commercially achieved; and as such careful consideration was given to all aspects of its design, specification and build quality.

The floor is designed to 50KN/M2, generally walls and roof claddings comprise Kingspan Composite Panels. 13.5% of the roof area is given over to roof lights to allow good levels of natural daylight. The roof lights are triple glazed achieving a U value of 2Kj/M2k. The combination of cladding materials used to complete the external fabric of the building was chosen to give an excellent level of insulation to the building.

To enhance the aesthetic and to complement the external cladding and architectural features of the building a mix of polished and textured ‘topcrete’ blocks were used along the front elevation below the cladding panel line.

Externally the general low density of development has allowed the provision of green space to improve both eco systems and to promote conservation as well as the health and wellbeing within the work environment on the development.