At the new £500 million Canary Wharf rail station, part of the £15 billion Crossrail contract, a range of roofing systems from leading waterproofing and green roofing supplier Radmat Building Products has been used to create a 250 metre long roof garden and green space.
Designed by Foster and Partners for the Canary Wharf Group, work began on the new Canary Wharf station in May 2009. After creating a 250 metre long coffer dam in the waters of North Dock, the new station box was then built from the top down finishing 28 metres below the water surface to create the ticket hall and platform levels.
A building of architectural significance, the station and retail park areas will cover an area approximately the same size as the iconic One Canada Square building laid on its side. For the roof garden designed by landscape architects Gillespies, it was crucial that the roofing system offered thermal performance, watertightness and long term reliability.
Working with the company on a series of projects at Canary Wharf, roofing contractor Prater once again turned to Radmat for the 6000m2 or roofing and green roofing systems. As part of a Radmat specification that also included ProTherm inverted roof insulation and MedO drainage layer, PermaQuik PQ6100 was specified as the system’s waterproofing membrane to combine toughness, flexibility, and strong adhesion to a variety of substrates, and deliver exceptional performance befitting of the uniquely designed structure.
PermaQuik PQ6100 is a one part, hot applied, seamless rubberised self-healing membrane made from bitumen, natural rubbers, and a blend of polymers, further reinforced with a high tensile polyester fabric. Accredited to last the lifetime of the structure; it is fully adhered, can self-heal and is widely used in zero fall applications.
To ensure a smooth and fast application process, Radmat also supplied 650m2 of heavy duty protection sheet overlaid onto the PermaQuik system, this allowed both Prater and other subcontractors access to the rooftop and ensured cladding and detailing works could continue without any damage to the waterproofing system.
The new roof garden and the first phase of the retail and leisure space will open in May 2015, three years before any trains run through the station. When Crossrail is completely finished in 2018, it will increase London’s rail-based transport network capacity by 10 per cent and bring an extra 1.5m people within 45 minutes of central London.
With Radmat’s high performance roofing solution providing waterproofing protection for years to come, it looks set to play a key role in the success of both the new Canary Wharf station and the landmark Crossrail development.
