March 8, 2024

Architectural Glazing for a Difficult London Plots

Written by Rebecca Clayton

Working in awkward spaces and tricky access

Densely populated areas, like a difficult London plot, have to use every bit of space available to create modern and inviting homes. These building plots can have very difficult access challenges to overcome for both the contractor and subcontractors on the site.

Thankfully, IQ have worked on architectural glazing sub-contracts across the globe with an extensive section of our historical portfolio based in London. The team have experienced some of the craziest access challenges you can imagine! Read on below for an insight into some of our most challenging site access requirements on sites in London and how the team overcame them.

Glazing Installations with No Rear Access

One of the most typical access issues for a difficult London plot is the lack of rear access. When large or heavy glass units are used, lifting equipment is normally needed to help lift the glass weight and ensure the safety of the site technicians. When there is no rear access, it can be tricky to get the equipment needed to the rear of the building, and sometimes it is not possible.

In these instances, there are a few avenues that can be considered. This is best done with your technical sales executive during the design phase of the project to ensure there are no surprises or design compromises needed later down the line.

Manage the Weight of the Glass Units

If you want to ensure that all glass units can be carried manually, meaning there is no need for lifting equipment, you can limit the weight of the glass units in the design. This could be done using a combination of reducing glass sizes and perhaps changing the product to alter the glass specification.

Your technical sales executive will easily be able to calculate the glass weights for the glass intended for your difficult London plot and tell you what the installation plan is from an early stage.

Lift Glass Over a Building

Where you do not want to make changes or compromise the design, lifting equipment or mobile cranes can be used to lift the glass over the building.

This is when you see those impressive videos and photos of large glass units being lifted over the building. These types of crane lifts are normally excluded from a glazing sub-contract as the contractor on site will likely have other items that need crane lifts (this allows you to combine lifts and save overall costs on the project).

Out of Hours Installations

Glass lifting equipment or mobile crane lifts often require road closures or traffic management to facilitate. When working in busy or popular areas of central London, there can sometimes be restrictions on these road closures during working hours. Therefore, some central London glass installations have to be completed out of hours.

Glazing Installations at Night

That was the case on Savile Row, where IQ provided the bespoke glazing which formed the front elevation of the renovated office building. All the glazing installation had to be completed overnight, using a mobile crane and partial road closure on this key London road, which spans between Piccadilly and Oxford Street.

Weekend Glazing Installations

Some councils in London Boroughs will also have restrictions on what roads can be closed and when. For example, one of our recent projects in Richmond was located on a road where the council had imposed crane restrictions on Monday - Saturday. Our glazing installation, therefore, had to be undertaken on a Sunday to install the sliding rooftop box.

Landlocked Building Sites

With a myriad of historic and listed buildings around London, sometimes access cannot be created to new building plots. This was the case at the Hidden House project. This single-storey new build home is located within the grounds of the Grade II-listed Kingsway Place apartment block. It was built onto the plot of an old caretaker's hut and is bracketed by brick walls on the north east and south east elevations, with no direct road access.

Here, IQ installed a series of architectural glazing solutions, designed to maximise light within the small building with consideration to the tight plot and imposing neighbouring buildings.

All glass units had to be carried to site by hand from offloading. This delivery and installation plan was discussed and agreed upon throughout the design phase of the project to ensure that the weight and size of glass units designed by the architects could be manually handled.

Obstacles for Lifting Glass

Lampposts, power lines and road signs litter the pavements and roads of a difficult London plot and congested cities. When lifting a glass for installation, all needs to be considered and planned for.

Lifting Glass into Basements

As well as going up, glass lifts also have to go down for installations into basement extensions and renovations.

The external access to these basement areas can sometimes be very limited. A great example of this is the Canal House pool, where IQ provided multiple arched-shaped windows with heated glass technology to the basement pool. These had to be lifted through a small hatch in the floor and manually carried underground to the pool area.

IQ’s Approach to Planning Site Access

IQ’s planning of our installation and access strategy starts from the first day you speak to us. Part of our technical sales process is to fully understand the site location and flag any potential considerations from an early stage so they don’t become surprises later.

Some design changes can mitigate site challenges, so we like to address these early in the project's design phase.

Once IQ are appointed to a project, we can undertake a full site survey, which includes assessing the on-site access, which helps your dedicated project manager plan the installation with the principal contractor on site. Another survey is completed 2 weeks before our planned installation to ensure that there have been no changes on site which change our intended installation and access plan.

Throughout the process, the team at IQ maintain close contact with the entire site team so that all remain on the same page. This is led by the dedicated project manager for your glazing sub-contract at IQ.

Looking at Starting a Project in a Difficult London Plot?

Contact the team at IQ Glass about your glazing requirements, and our technical sales team can advise on our suggestions for site access and logistics.