Monthly Archives: September 2022

Case Study – Burger King

Last year, fast food chain Burger King added forty-eight new restaurants to their rapidly growing portfolio. Twinfix were approached by Ideal Building Systems to design, manufacture & install canopies and Brise Soleils at three of the sites in Kent, Clacton-on-Sea and Swindon.

With over 30 years’ experience the Twinfix Technical Team had no problems designing structures to suit the requirements and budget of the client.

Twinfix’s expert team designed, manufactured, and installed a brise soleil which covered all four sides of the restaurant at the first site in Swindon and fabricated lean to mono-pitch canopies with squared posts and 3mm thick solid aluminium sheet for roof, complete with brise soleil for rear, sides and front at the restaurants in Kent and Clacton-on-Sea.

The structures served two purposes, while providing shelter, they also enhanced the aesthetics of the restaurants and complemented the building’s exterior.

Each canopy spans 35 square metres and the roof comprises of pressed aluminium roof at a reduced pitch to fit inside the 150 depths of our frame, concealed gutters and downpipes and prepared for soffits by another contractor. The roofs were powder coated in RAL 3020 Traffic Red and squared aluminium posts powder coated to RAL 9006 White Aluminium.

The Brise Soleils are constructed from our 150 x75 rectangular hollow section and had to accommodate some wiring for lights that were installed later by another contractor. These are a striking addition to the building fascia.

The design of the proposed future sites look set to follow the same format and we look forward to working with Ideal Building Systems on the upcoming projects.

Case Study Green Lane SEN School, Warrington

Over the last decade, Twinfix have installed 10 canopies on five separate occasions at Green Lane Community Special School, part of Woolston Learning Village in Holes Lane, Warrington.

The initial project involved fitting a 35m long 2m wide walkway on this school, and another 32m walkway at the adjacent school on the site, both designed to provide under cover access between car drop-off and the school buildings.  Twinfix were approached by main contractor ISG Construction Ltd from Salford to design, manufacture and install these as part of their overall task to refurbish the old Woolston High School campus back in 2014.

Since the original project, Twinfix have been invited back on four more occasions by Head Teacher, Paul King to install further canopies. Most recently a free-standing mono-pitch canopy spanning 80 square-metres.

All the canopies designed, manufactured and installed by Twinfix have aluminium frames powder coated in blue RAL 5010.  As this metal doesn’t rust in use, they will keep their good looks throughout their long life.  The roof glazing consists of Twinfix Multi-Link-Panels NF fitted with tough 25mm opal multiwall polycarbonate.  The NF denotes that these panels conform to the HSE’s recommended drop test ACR[M]001:2019, as recommended by HSG33. This is particularly important where access could be gained to the overhead glazing.

Vertical glazing was included in the design of the walkways at the school which provides additional weather protection, while the canopies providing shelter in play areas were fitted with post protectors to guard the children from bumps and bangs.

Paul King explains: “We cater for children from 3 to 18 years old.  They’re not like children in a main-stream school, they’re vulnerable and they all have special needs.  We wanted them to have covered access to the outside throughout the year and these canopies have enabled us to achieve this.  Our children have to be taught how to play and having such large, safe protected outside areas gives us the space to do this.  All the areas had to be closed off from pupils for installing the footings for the post supports and again for the actual build – but Twinfix were very accurate in the timings they gave us and they were finished within their promised timeframe. “