Cedar Northgate

Challenge

Our Cedar project was one of Taplanes’ biggest and groundbreaking in innovation that has happened within the industry. This type of project needed design, implementation and understanding of current standards, regulations, and guidance for example those set out by the Department of Health “Environmental Design guide – Adult Medium Secure Services”; “HTM-05-02” 2015 (Fire safety in the design of healthcare premises) and others

The ensuite pods that were designed had an area of 4m² with a height of 3m. It took multiple collaboration with external companies to achieve the outlined regulations, standards, and guidance above.

With Taplanes material not being perfectly suitable for the project (BS476 Class 3) fire retardancy, collaboration was a key factor to achieve the required BS476 Class 1 fire retardancy for the bathroom pod. Achieving BS476 class 1 fire retardancy was one of the most important parts of the project so the R&D process had to be rigorous in adhering the governmental regulations when creating a product for the NHS. Even though our material is only BS476 Class 3 fire retardant and the project required BS476 Class 1, we were chosen due to unique Taplanes polypropylene properties such as bacterial/mould growth resistant, durability, and shatter proof (this was important to make sure our pods do not break, which could lead to patient harm).

R&D process was ongoing until we got the NHS Trust approval. One of the challenges Taplanes faced when designing was the anti-ligature trap guidance along with minimal required drainage flow. We overcame this challenge by developing a unique solution that addressed these issues.

Scope

Polypropylene has a property that is low surface energy and because of this, it results in its unique property of being anti-bacterial. Our products are still currently in use by different clients for over 40+years.

A request from the Cedar project was to have BS476 Class 1 fire retardant flooring, our team developed an advanced bonding, vinyl to polypropylene, technique that would allow vinyl to stick to Taplanes material permanently.

We were able to supply 46 super-sized pods to the Cedar project which were craned into a new build for the £72.6m upgrade programme to the facility.

Result/Solution

Taplanes were the only company to be able to offer this type of solution to our existing product to fit the unique needs of the Cedar project. Other companies within the industry did not have the capacity or the expertise to be able to complete an extensive and complicated project.

Being able to be the only company in the modular bathroom sector that was able to create this unique and bespoke solution, meant that we were able to take what seemed to be an almost impossible project into a project that was the first to be developed and for Taplanes to be the only company that are able to create this type of solution again, becoming the market leader when it comes to this very niche space of bathroom pods.