Aliva UK was commissioned to provide a statement façade for Cardiff University’s Business School – a landmark new £14.5 million building for the city and the university. The building is affectionately known locally as ‘the rugby ball’ due to its bespoke curves, rich brown tones and the Welsh affinity to the sport.
The new business school was designed to visually tie two existing structures together – the Julian Hodge building and the Haydn Ellis building. Boyes Rees Architects specified an eye-catching façade with bespoke tiles – one that would create a synergy between the two existing buildings, while giving an independent and impressive identity to the business school’s new home.
Aliva proposed a concept that cascaded colours from light to dark brown down the length of the building, utilising four different coloured clay terracotta rainscreen cladding tiles matched with Pantones specified by Boyes Rees. This staggered aesthetic effect delivered huge visual impact, allowing the eye to follow the colour spectrum vertically and horizontally.
Aliva manufactured vertical tiles in four brown tones in two dimensions, 1200mm x 300mm and 600mm x 300mm, with total product volume of 830 sqm on the building. The tiles were installed using Aliva UK’s ‘Ali-V’ fixing system, specifically designed for vertically-fixed cladding.
Clive Webb, Director at Boyes Rees, said: “We worked collaboratively with Aliva who provided innovative solutions to our design aesthetic for this project.”