Photos: James White Photography
Coppergate
Swansea
CLIENT: Crosslane
BRAND: Prime Student Living
PROJECT TYPE: Student accommodation
VALUE: £17 million
NO OF ROOMS: 310 student beds
ARCHITECT: Maith Design
CONTRACTOR: Create Construction
COMPLETED: Dec 2019
The Coppergate, Student Accommodation project in partnership with Crosslane, comprises of 310 bedrooms, 24 of which are self-contained studio apartments and 286 en suite cluster flats of between 5 and 10 bedrooms. The rooms are spread across a 14 storey tower block and two six-storey wings. It is one of the tallest buildings in Swansea, providing residents with amazing views across the city and out across the coast to the sea. It is a particularly eye-catching building because of its colour-changing ‘chameleon’ cladding.
The Architect's vision for the project was to create a beautiful, contemporary structure that not only enhanced its surroundings, but met the demand for high quality Student
Accommodation for students attending both the University of Swansea and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
Whilst also ensuring the purpose-built accommodation would provide residents with a comfortable, high standard of living, the building is now supporting the universities in their growth ambitions, as well as freeing up more housing for local families and young professionals in the area.
Other notable features to this impressive new building are: a private landscaped central courtyard set inside the horseshoe formation, significant communal areas to encourage collaborative working and socialising; a reception area and a ground floor retail unit fronting onto The Kingsway - part of the Council’s re-development plans taking place on this main thoroughfare in the town.
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The Create Construction team started on site in March 2018. The area was formerly a surface level car park, with a single storey restaurant building before its demolition. From the initial contract award, a detailed design programme was implemented to ensure the project team were equipped with the relevant information. Throughout the project, meetings were held with Create's Design Team and key sub-contractors to ensure that everyone was focused and communicating to allow the scheme to succeed.
The Building's Design
Colourful & Safe Facade
The highly resilient weather, temperature and UV-resistant façade of the Coppergate building is made from natural and sustainable volcanic basalt rock with an organic binder, presenting a luxurious palette of matt Red, Gold, Purple and Grey. The arrangement of colours brings visual interest to the building, which is accentuated as the changing weather reflects light across its surface.
Photos: James White Photography
Dave Pierpoint - Contracts Manager, commented: “There have been many difficult challenges in the project that were beyond our control, but I’m extremely proud of how hard the team worked together to overcome these.”
One of the most important considerations when designing the build was to ensure that the exterior cladding for this type of construction complied with stringent fire safety performance characteristics to ensure the protection and safety of the building’s users. Requiringlittle or no maintenance, the shimmering facade will stun passers-by residents for a very long time.
