Float Glass Industries’ glazing expertise plays key part in Manchester’s Nuovo Apartments

The development comprises a 12 storey tower block plus two other five and six storey buildings both with semi-external atrium areas.All together, the scheme provides 126 high quality apartments, 40 affordable housing units and 10,000 sq ft of commercial space.

A flagship development such as this one, combined with stringent technical requirements, not to mention the sheer scale of the project, needed high quality, experienced contractors, not least when it came to the glazing. The company that won the tender for the external glazing was Charles Henshaw & Sons Ltd, a leader in the manufacture and installation of glazing systems for over one hundred years. The company had teamed up with its glass supplier, Float Glass Industries, to create the winning package.

Steve Ferrie, Commercial Sales Director of Float Glass Industries, says there were a number of reasons that Charles Henshaw and FGI were awarded the contract. “This was a very large scale project, so the chosen supplier needed to have the manufacturing and processing capacity to be able to cope. This was something that we were able to demonstrate and our proximity to the development, less than 10 miles, was valuable too. We were also able to demonstrate our ability to fulfil highly technical glass requirements, including toughened and acoustic curved single and double glazed units and ceramic toughened units. Our technical support and experience working alongside Charles Henshaw was critical too, because we were able to value engineer this exciting project and eventually come up with the very best performing glass available on the market and still meet the budgetary requirements.”

The project took just over a year to complete and Charles Henshaw and FGI supplied a huge range of glazing elements including high performance coated double glazed toughened units, high performance coated double glazed acoustic toughened and laminated units, high performance coated curved double glazed toughened and laminated units, high performance coated curved double glazed acoustic toughened and laminated units, ceramic painted toughened double glazed curved units complete with internal insulation and ceramic painted single toughened glazed curved panels complete with internal insulation.

Dawn Offland, Joint Managing Director at Float Glass Industries, says, “We have worked on numerous high profile projects like this in the past, but it’s always exciting to be able to work on a project so close to home, especially one such as this one that is helping to rejuvenate an area of the city centre.”

She adds, “The project was the first time we had worked so closely with Charles Henshaw and I’m delighted to say that we have worked together on subsequent projects. The respective skills each company brings to the partnership makes us a compelling team!” And looking at the stunning Nuovo Apartments, it's hard to disagree!