Eco House, 2008 Ideal Home Show, London UK

Ancon supplied stainless steel tension bars to the build of the ‘Eco House’; one of the major attractions of the 2008 Ideal Home Show in London. The project was a flat-pack, modular assembly requiring 144 individual tension bars in two lengths.

Structural Engineer, Jonathon Ings of Ings Engineering, specified the Ancon system and said of the installation,

The steel framework is the first element to be constructed, then working from one end of the building the roof cassettes are installed.

Ancon tension bars, 3 metres long, are installed vertically to provide support to the floor cassette and are used to align and level the floors and walls.

Shorter bars of 175mm are installed at an angle of 45 degrees from the steelwork to stiffen the hanging floor in the horizontal direction, to cater for sway stability. They are also used to ensure correct alignment between adjacent bays.

In principle, the horizontal tension members can be designed and detailed to make the structure earthquake resistant.

‘Eco House’ is the creation of architectural designer John Prewer and its installation at the Ideal Home Show was project managed by Hamson Partnership.

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