Global building product manufacturer, Sika, has transformed the basement of its Preston centre into a stunning training conference room. The five-figure refurbishment at Sika House includes an interactive showroom area where visitors can discover a range of top-quality Sika products.
The renovation project was a collaborative, in-house venture which called upon the experience and expertise of Sika staff from across the UK and Europe. Sika solutions were used to build and fit-out the entire facility.
Speaking about the new conference training room and exhibition area, Dragan Maksimović, General Manager of Sika UK, said: “This has very much been a project where all parts of Sika worked collaboratively to showcase the products, their individual expertise and application of our materials. It’s a great new facility, and well done to everybody involved.”
Staff across all levels of the Sika business played their part in the refurbishment. Architect interns took the opportunity to learn about the company’s products on a “live” project by proposing design concepts which included remodelling the floor plan, as changes were made throughout the build.
Preston builders, Walkers, carried out the refurbishment work, with Sika’s application teams – including visiting staff members from Sika Spain – installing the main internal finishing products. A micro-cement designer wall feature, one of the exhibition area’s architectural highlights, was built by the Spanish team using Sika Décor, a product launched by Sika Spain in 2015 and due to be launched by Sika UK in 2017.
The project was also an opportunity to showcase the newly-launched Sikagard® Hygienic coating 400 Series, a solution specifically for hygiene-critical environments and applied to the converted basement’s walls. In preparation for the installation of the Sika Flooring systems, the main floor substrate was levelled using the new Sikafloor®-300 Rapid Level, an extremely low emission cement-based, self-levelling compound which was used in conjunction with the seamless Sika ComfortFloor®, a smooth, low VOC, coloured elastic resin floor offering superb comfort, high levels of wear and noise resistance, and excellent crack-bridging properties.
The aesthetics of the facility is further enhanced by the design freedom of specifying ComfortFloor, allowing for a creative design finish to be applied using bespoke colour patterns throughout the space. The result of this Europe-wide team effort is a modern, attractive conference training room and showroom facility; a vital development hub for current and future Sika staff, and the ultimate public showcase for Sika’s unrivalled product range.
