One Cambridge Square

11-11-2022

^{Picture courtesy of Bidwells}

One Cambridge Square will provide a mix of office and retail space within a 94,564 square foot building. Working alongside main contractor Wates and subcontractor P A Collacott & Co, Gripple provided it’s innovative rapid trapeze system, Fast Trak, to suspend electrical containment throughout each floor of this BREEAM Excellent site in Cambridge.

• Building Type: Commercial
• Main Contractor: Wates Construction
• Subcontractor: P A Collacott & Co
• Services: Electrical Containment 

One Cambridge Square is at the heart of Cambridge North - a new, vibrant, mixed-use urban environment. This 94,564 sq ft building will benefit from contemporary office space, carefully designed to enable flexible working. The ground floor will provide retail outlets and the project will transform 40 acres of derelict land into a thriving and inclusive new neighbourhood, all designed around low carbon, neighbourhoods with access to green spaces.

Working alongside main contractor Wates and subcontractor P A Collacott & Co, Gripple provided it’s innovative rapid trapeze system, Fast Trak, to suspend electrical containment throughout each floor of the building. Fast Trak is a pre-fabricated bracket solution offering speed, flexibility and efficient use of space, for the installation of electrical containment. There were some key hurdles to overcome which highlight why Fast Trak was an ideal choice for this project.

Speed of installation was essential to help deliver this project on time. With Fast Trak being up to six-times faster to install than traditional methods it was perfect for the job. First time installers on-site from P A Collacott & Co had no issue installing the bracketry throughout the site. Another issue was the steel beams casing the soffit on each floor at One Cambridge Square. The cable baskets and trays had to navigate through different heights and levels on each floor whilst looking tidy and not compromising safety. Fast Trak benefits from a tool-free easy adjustment capability, whereby the bracket can quickly move up and down the ‘trak’ in 10 mm increments before locking back into place. This meant if the baskets needed to be raised up slightly to go under or through a steel beam then installation would not be slowed down.

An electrical supervisor from P A Collacott & Co said: “Fast Trak has definitely helped us deliver the project quickly. We had some tricky steel beams to get through which Fast Trak helped navigate with it’s quick adjustments – it has been a lot quicker than traditional methods. A whole floor is taking two installers four days to complete. The same space using traditional methods would have taken three weeks at least.”

This project has been rated as BREEAM Excellent. Another string to Fast Trak’s bow is the amount of carbon savings it can provide a project like this when compared to traditional methods. Fast Trak helped to save 4,431 kg of embodied carbon on-site – the equivalent of driving over 15,000 miles.

Discussing the carbon savings at One Cambridge Square, an MEP site manager from Wates said: “The fact that Fast Trak is preformed and brought to site ready to go means we’ve seen no wastage at all! The tracks can bend up in the bracket and using Fast Trak has eliminated the need for hot works on-site – saving time and improving health and safety. This is my first time seeing the latest variation of Fast Trak and it’s all been good feedback from the installers. It’s a very speedy install. Speed was huge here.”

Fast Trak is a fully fire-rated system. Following the Grenfell Tower disaster in 2017 the need for fire-rated systems is essential. Speaking on these topics, Gripple Area Sales Manager Josh Bloomfield said: “Fast Trak helped contractors on-site by speeding up their installation of electrical containment. The fire rating it provides was definitely key on this project, the F120 fire rating is so important. Not only did Fast Trak help to improve health and safety on-site, it also provided a 17 week reduction in labour."

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