Client: Muckle Brig Limited
Main contractor: Colorado Group Limited
Architect: Threesixty Architecture
Installer: Mason Facades Limited
Products: Trisobuild® VW/FW 0.7, Prisma, Anthracite (RAL 7016)
Year: 2024
Location: Edinburgh
The brand-new Port of Leith Distillery in Edinburgh is shaking up the world of Scotch whisky on numerous fronts, from distillery design and spirit production to community involvement and the façade of this new iconic building is clad in Trisobuild® Cladding System from Building Systems UK.
The new £12M distillery facility is contained within a nine-storey tower with the production operation stacked vertically over the first four floors, with the remaining upper floors housing Port of Leith’s visitor experience elements which include a bar, tasting rooms and a shop.
It has been said that Ian Stirling and Paddy Fletcher, the founders of Muckle Brig never set out to build a vertical distillery, but this nonetheless posed many challenges for the vertical façade which needed to comply with high fire performance requirements, which the tested and LPCB Certified Trisobuild system was able to meet, including the A2 reaction to fire criteria of the 40 metre façade height.
Port of Leith Distillery facility was a restricted small land parcel that required vertical architecture, and so the concept of a vertical distillery, or perhaps better described, ‘Gravity Distillery’ was conceived, and is possibly only the second such facility in the World, following the Mackmyra facility in Sweden.
The brief presented by Threesixty Architecture was to create a building that reflected the clients ‘ambition to present an exciting, modern face for the Scotch Whisky Industry and will encompass their core values of Innovation, Education and Openness’, the challenge however was to build a nine-storey or 40-metre high vertical tower, a significant piece of structural engineering adjacent to the harbour wall at Leith which would withstand the exposed environment, be practical to build and meet the stringent fire requirements of high buildings in the post-Grenfell landscape.
For Building Systems UK (an enterprise of Tata Steel), working closely with both the architects and Colorado Group, the construction delivery partner, was essential to ensure product information and specification flow was accurate from an early stage, that the architectural aesthetics remained uncompromised by the strict fire requirements of the facility, and importantly that buildability was considered in the process.
The specification of Trisobuild® VW/FW was developed not only to provide non-combustible classification, the system was designed using Platinum® Plus to include specific and accurate component and ancillary product requirements, thereby ensuring that the complete cladding system would withstand the harsh coastal conditions supported by a guarantee of credibility.
In addition to the main cladding specification, Building Systems UK also supplied support in the form of site audit inspections during the construction process, wind load and thermal calculations and complimented the system guarantee by the addition of Confidex for the Colorcoat Prisma external coatings.
Dare we describe this as an iconic building, well where else will you find a vertical distillery encased in a beautiful, bold and modern building, sitting on Leith’s waterfront, as a beacon for cruise ships entering the port, which can boast a Royal Yacht as a neighbour
EN-Construction-Contact-BSUK envelope
Building Systems UK technical team - Building Envelope
