Working with Bristol Aerospace and Keir Construction West & Wales to design and install walls for the new Concorde Centre in Bristol.
Bristol’s history is intertwined with that of the British Aerospace industry. Engineers have been designing and building planes at Filton for over a hundred years. Arguably the most famous plane to be built here during the second half of the twentieth century was Concorde, the world’s first supersonic passenger plane.
Concorde was retired in 2003 and plane number 216 flew into Filton Airfield on the 26 November that year. It’s now going to be the centrepiece to the new aerospace museum.
We’re happy to be working with Kier Construction West & Wales again having completed a number of successful projects for them in the past. They got in touch to ask us to design and install two large walls for the new Concorde Centre.
The hangar for Concorde is large, with the two internal walls measuring over 900m2. The design required the panels to be weathertight, airtight and resistant to wind loading. The walls are going to sit behind the existing hangar doors, which were designed to be opened, and do not to withstand extreme weather conditions for extended periods of time.
To make sure the hangar was sustainable in the long-term, two sections of 8×6 metres needed to be easily demountable as the building may be used as an exhibition space in the future.
Stancold worked closely with Keir’s site team to come up with a design that uses Kingspan’s innovative Quadcore panels, with specific detailing around the head of the walls. It was particularly important to get the design and construction methods right as the aircraft hangar that Concorde 216 will reside in has Grade 2 listing, having been built for use during the Second World War.
Work will start at the end of January. Not only is this project an interesting challenge design-wise, we’re also very excited to be involved in preserving our local heritage. Once in place Concorde 216 will provide inspiration for future generations of engineers, scientists and designers.
