Façade and building envelope specialist Century Facades Limited is nearing completion on the world’s tallest modular student building.

Part of the ongoing regeneration of Lewisham and the wider Lewisham Gateway development, Lewisham Exchange provides 758 student rooms and 67 affordable homes over two towers of 35 and 20 storeys. The buildings are connected at lower levels to provide retail and commercial space, amenity areas and an entrance to the future Bakerloo line extension. Designed by architects JTP, the development is constructed from volumetric 3D structural modules, which were manufactured offsite to ensure a higher quality finish, a faster construction programme and 90 per cent less waste than traditional construction methods.

As a key supply chain partner to principal contractor Tide Construction and a specialist in high rise building facades, Century Facades was appointed to fit high performance window screens at Tide’s associate company Vision Modular Systems’ industry-leading modular factory in Bedford, as well as design, procure and install a complex architectural building envelope at Lewisham Exchange.

The architects specified natural brick finish for the building envelope to ensure the towers remained in keeping with the local architecture. Century Facades was tasked with identifying a suitable lightweight brick slip that lost none of the architectural intent, while offering all the benefits of a lightweight, non-combustible and fully-tested cladding system.  

The building envelope specialist also delivered2,000sq m of aluminium systemised cassette rainscreen featuring a striking bronze finish to complement the architectural brick, in addition to some fine examples of glass rainscreen to the crown of the buildings and brick slip arches at the ground and first floor levels.

Tim Lovell, Joint Managing Director of CenturyFacades, said: “We are proud to have successfully delivered the building envelope for this innovative development in less than a year. Our client's expect the very best, and Lewisham Exchange is another example of where our commitment to innovation has resulted in the delivery of a very quick building envelope of the highest quality, providing a welcome addition to Lewisham’s town centre and one of the largest regeneration schemes in the South East.”

‍