Woodberry Down, UKJ&P BALCON^® steel balcony connector with thermal break

Woodberry Down is an award-winning regeneration scheme in Hackney, North London which, once complete, will provide over 5,500 new homes. Set next to Woodberry Wetlands and Finsbury Park, the 64 acre development features landscaped gardens and parkland to both support the area’s abundant wildlife and to benefit the physical and emotional wellbeing of residents.

Woodberry Down is an award-winning regeneration scheme in Hackney, North London which, once complete, will provide over 5,500 new homes. Set next to Woodberry Wetlands and Finsbury Park, the 64-acre development features landscaped gardens and parkland to support the area’s abundant wildlife and benefit residents' physical and emotional well-being.

As with many high-rise developments, to enlarge the living area and to provide easy access to outside space, the Architect has incorporated balconies into the design.

J&P Building Systems approached Berkeley Homes and proposed using the J&P BALCON^® as a structural thermal break for the steel balconies.  By utilising the JORDAHL^® channel, the J&P BALCON^® gives generous fixing tolerance, thus reducing the risk of claims, variation costs and delays to the project resulting from the balconies not fitting.

The J&P Balcon comprises three lengths of JORDAHL^®  hot-rolled channel: a horizontal channel to resist the bending moment load and two vertical toothed channels to resist the shear load. The channels have appropriate lengths of grade 500C reinforcement welded to the back and sides to provide full anchorage into the concrete structure. The vertical channels also transfer the compression load back into the slab.

Working closely with MLM, Rolfe Judd and Berkeley’s technical team, J&P produced a design to suit the slab depth and load requirements. Unit types were minimised to simplify and streamline installation for the frame contractor. In addition, the vertical toothed channels were designed to sit on the formwork, thus automatically setting the units to the correct height for ease of site setting out.

As a direct result of the success of this project, Berkeley Homes proposed the use of J&P BALCON^® on a further three blocks at Woodberry Down.