Fire safety meets style in new Liverpool Materials Lab
6 July 2022Sustainability-focused retail company, All the Shapes Tile & Co (ATS), is focusing on fire-safe timber construction at a new site in the heart of Liverpool. To achieve this goal, the 9,000ft2 ‘Materials Lab’, which serves as ATS’s main showroom, will feature attractive and safe display areas, built using MEDITE SMARTPLY’s innovative SMARTPLY MAX FR B panels, featuring Zeroignition (Zi) technology.
The project will see the entire interior clad with SMARTPLY MAX FR B, integrated with Zeroignition non-toxic flame-retardant solution, as well as a new partition wall using the same material, to separate the warehouse storage space and the showroom.
Importantly, this will help to provide an attractive aesthetic while delivering effective protection against fire damage.
Almost 200 18mm boards of SMARTPLY MAX FR B were specified on the project, covering an area of 540m2, providing essential strength, moisture-resistance and fire-retardant properties.
The Zeroignition solution, crucial to making the material fire retardant, is applied to the wood-based panels during manufacture, ensuring the timber is protected throughout the entire depth of the panel, not just the surface layer.
Under the European standard EN13501-1, the resilient panels have a reaction to fire classification of B-s2, d0 and bfl-s1 (flooring). Thus, they not only have a very limited contribution to fire, but contractors and architects can also easily specify the materials for projects.
A core feature of Zeroignition’s fire retardant solution is its non-toxic property, making it perfect for commercial and retail settings. The panels used for the ATS site have been produced using FSC certified timber with no added formaldehyde and are fully CARB2 compliant. In addition to being fire safe, these materials are more environmentally friendly and risk fewer health hazards.
“It is promising to see fire safety prioritised within new regeneration projects such as the ATS site,” said Ian King, Zeroignition chief operating officer.
“We are huge advocates for timber construction and it is time to address the barriers surrounding fire safety. The journey to creating a fire retardant product as robust as this has taken years of research, development and extensive testing, but it’s a small price to pay for safety.”
