HOME Arts Centre, Manchester

A flagship for the redevelopment of the city’s First Street area and new base for two of the region’s leading visual arts specialists, Cornerhouse and The Library Theatre Company, HOME is Manchester’s new £25 million centre for contemporary art, theatre and film. Its exciting new facilities include two theatres, a flexible 4m high gallery space and a 5-screen cinema, along with digital production and broadcast facilities and a large café area.

Designed by architects, Mecanoo, for Manchester City Council, the distinctive triangular building is constructed on a constrained brownfield site, previously serving as a temporary car park. At its heart is a reinforced concrete frame with concrete panels exposed internally, creating an uncompromising industrial feel in contrast to the building’s eye-catching iridescent glazed façade.

The Challenge

The challenge for Ancon was to simplify and strengthen construction joints at wall and floor connections in the cast concrete slabs, whilst allowing the build to proceed quickly to meet the client’s tight project schedule. This was compounded by the need to accommodate different diameters of reinforcing bar, depending on the slab depth and location.

The Solution

Working closely with concrete construction specialist, Adana Construction, Ancon developed a complete bespoke solution using the company’s KSN Anchors, Bartec Plus Starter Bars and Eazistrip Reinforcement Continuity Systems.

Ancon KSN Anchors provided a flexible solution for areas involving thicker diameter 16 and 20mm bar, which would have been either difficult to straighten on site, or outside the normal scope of re-bending systems. A quicker, easier and safer way of providing a CARES-approved connection and pull-out resistance, the KSN Anchors were simply cast into the slab ready to accept the parallel threaded Bartec Plus bar, thus overcoming the usual bar length and diameter restrictions associated with traditional re-bend continuity systems.

To simplify installation, individual KSN units were supplied pre-assembled in rows to the required diameter, spacing and length on tapered timber fixing carriers, which were removed once the concrete had cured to allow straightforward bar fixing.

12mm bar applications were accommodated using Ancon’s Eazistrip Reinforcement Continuity System, a CARES-approved system of pre-bent bars, supplied ready engineered to the correct length and spacing within a special galvanised steel casing which was cast into the slab edge.

Bartec Plus coupled starter bars, up to 32mm in diameter, were used in the more heavily reinforced and congested areas.

Related Products

KSN Anchors

Ancon KSN Anchors, in combination with Bartec Plus parallel-threaded reinforcing bars, simplify concrete construction joints.

Eazistrip Standard Range

Eazistrip Reinforcement Continuity Systems are designed to maintain continuity of reinforcement at construction joints in concrete.

Starter Bar System

The Starter Bar system is designed to increase the speed of construction at joints where continuity of reinforcement is required, or for fixing applications using standard metric bolts or studding.