architecture - engineering - construction
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Flexible floor access solution for L’Enfant Promenade
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| Jan 27, 2017 |
Howe Green recently supplied twenty two Visedge Series Flexible Floor Access Covers for an installation at a government building located on L’Enfant Promenade in Washington, DC.
L’Enfant Promenade is a pedestrian esplanade with a shopping mall and office buildings. It first opened to the public in June 1968 and was named after the famous French born American architect and city planner Pierre Charles L’Enfant. Pierre L’Enfant was the mastermind behind the city of Washington after being commissioned by George Washington in 1791 to design the capital from what was essentially a blank piece of paper.
An access challenge:
Howe Green’s US distributor, FF Systems Inc., received a call from a firm of drywall contractors based in Virginia. Rozco Drywall was looking for technical guidance on a floor access solution for a project involving the remodeling of office space. Their remit included identifying a solution that could provide easy and safe access to services concealed under a raised floor area.FF Systems worked closely with the technical team at Howe Green to identify the most suitable floor access cover to meet the client’s specification. The Visedge Series flexible floor access cover ticked all the boxes.
A flexible flooring solution:
The Visedge has been designed specifically to provide access to concealed services located under flexible flooring, such as vinyl, linoleum, rubber and certain types of carpet. It can be used in areas with pedestrian traffic and can be found in hospitals, schools and restaurants all over the world. A tough, light weight aluminum cover it is quick and easy to install.The twenty two panels supplied for the L’Enfant Promenade project were a standard size - 18” x 18” giving a clear opening of 12.59”. The minimum size the Visedge is available to order from stock is 6” x 6” and the largest standard size has a maximum width of 40” and length of 48”. Due to ongoing investment in computer design software and C.N.C. machinery Howe Green is easily able to manufacture special purpose access covers in non-standard sizes and load bearings.
The Visedge Series Flexible Floor Access Covers were installed into a raised floor that was 5.75” above a metal stud floor over a concrete slab. The covers provide easy access to a series of junction boxes and were required to ensure that any maintenance to the junction boxes could take place with minimal disruption.
Richard Centa, Sales and Marketing Director at Howe Green comments, “Several years ago it would have been quite unusual for our access covers to be installed into raised flooring. By definition raised flooring provides a void within a building for mechanical, electrical, telecoms and ventilation services. Those services would have been accessed by removing a panel of the raised flooring using a special tool.
More recently we have experienced an increase in demand for access covers to be used in buildings with raised flooring, particularly where a waterproof floor finish is required such as PVC flooring. This type of sheet flooring prevents the normal lift of any floor panel to gain access to services as doing so would destroy the floor finish.
Other attributes are also important – security, convenience and aesthetics. Our access covers are available with a double sealed option for the highest level of security yet they offer quick and easy access to the services below. When it comes to aesthetics floor access covers provide a seamless, almost invisible finish. They can accommodate a diverse range of floor finishes - from the Visedge Series for flexible flooring to the 2500 Series for wood floor finishes and the 1050 Series for granite and concrete. The interior design of the building does not have to be compromised for functionality.
Howe Green is now beginning to make its mark in DC with this latest project at L’Enfant and the installation of our wall access panels in the restrooms at Dulles International last year. We’re now waiting for that call from the White House!”
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