Smurfit Kappa

The single-storey building was manufactured and partially fitted out at the Portakabin manufacturing centre in York to bring the facilities into use as fast as possible and craned into position in just a few days over two phases. This radically reduced any disruption caused by the construction at this extremely busy manufacturing facility. The L-shaped building provides both cellular and open plan offices, a canteen and staff welfare facilities such as showers and lockers.

The site for the building is located on a water table and close to the River Medway. Portakabin engineered the building design to elevate it above the flood line which meant installing the steel modules on to metre-high piers to mitigate the flood risk. It was critical for Smurfit Kappa to have this facility up and running as fast as possible to support the new manufacturing plant, as a number of older buildings had already been demolished as part of a major site redevelopment. Off-site construction proved to be very cost efficient and significantly reduced the lead time for occupation compared to site-based building methods.