James & Taylor secures police HQ contract

Cladding specialist James & Taylor has won the contract to dress part of the new headquarters for Greater Manchester Police at Central Park.

James & Taylor will supply 15,700 sq ft of its 'eyetech' expanded mesh in clear anodised aluminium to clad the multi-storey car park element of the new £63m building designed by Aedas Architects.

The eyetech system was developed with the Expanded Metal Company and has been used to clad New York's Museum of Contemporary Art, the car park in Media City UK and the Stephen Lawrence Centre in London.

Andrew Barstow of James & Taylor's Manchester office said: "Aedas wants to create a landmark building to replace GMP's existing headquarters in Old Trafford. Our design team worked very closely with them to create a facade using both conventionally aligned and inverted eyetech panels, which will give a unique and very exciting visual appearance. This is the first project to use the panels in this format. We are delighted to be working on such an important building in an area of Manchester that has seen massive regeneration in recent years."

Geoff Goodman of Aedas Architects said: "With a car park on such a prominent site it was important to carry through the main building's quality of finish and visual interest into the deck façade. The use of quality materials such as white precast concrete panels and the eyetech in their varied configurations will draw from the palette used on the main building for continuity, but the mesh will further enliven the car park façade in its own right."

The police HQ is due to be completed in 2011.