Making a Multiple Award-Winning Development Waterproof
Context
Mount Anvil and One Housing Group collaborated to create a new luxury development in the heart of fashionable Clerkenwell, England. This project features a range of studio, one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom apartments, all surrounded by private gardens and water features.
The development plans included 274 units within a 10-storey building, atop 4,500 m2 (48,438 ft2) of commercial space, incorporating basements and parking areas.
To ensure permanent protection against water for the basement and parking areas, Mount Anvil and One Housing Group’s construction team sought a long-term concrete waterproofing solution.
Solution
Due to access restrictions at the busy Clerkenwell inner-city site, the construction team chose Kryton’s integral concrete waterproofing system, which includes the waterproofing admixture KIM and the Krystol Waterstop System.
This system offers the advantage of eliminating the need for an external waterproofing membrane, thus negating the requirement for additional space for equipment and crew to apply such a membrane. Instead, KIM was simply added to the concrete mix, allowing the concrete itself to serve as the waterproof barrier. The Krystol Waterstop System was then applied to the construction joints, ensuring the entire structure remained watertight.
Approximately 3,000 m3 (4,000 yd3) of concrete in the slab, lift pits, and basement walls was waterproofed with KIM. Additionally, over 1,500 m (5,000 ft) of the Krystol Waterstop System was used to waterproof joints in the basement and parking areas.
As a result, the development achieved a robust waterproofed foundation, leading to several accolades. The project won bronze for best partnership scheme and silver for best interior design at the WhatHouse? Awards in 2012. In the same year, it was also named Development of the Year at the Sunday Times’ British Homes Awards, and it went on to earn several prestigious awards for bathroom design and landscaping.