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Siderise champions collaboration to deliver passive fire solution for new Birmingham student accommodation

Siderise has partnered with Ash & Lacy to provide a tested passive fire protection solution for the NaturAL X Brick Cladding System being installed on Vita Student’s latest accommodation development on the historic Gough Street and Suffolk Street intersection in Birmingham.

Vita Student Gough Street has been built to meet the increasing demand for purpose-built student accommodation across Birmingham. Due to complete in summer 2026, it will provide high-quality apartments and community spaces set across 10 and 29-storey tower blocks. To blend the new high-rise towers into the existing architecture in the area, their detailed elevations are completed with a masonry brick finish — punctuated with lengths of curtain wall to provide daylighting.

For the masonry elements, the project team chose to use Ash & Lacy’s NaturAL X Brick Cladding System — a lightweight, mechanically-fixed brick cladding system — over traditional approaches. This allowed for the durability and timeless aesthetic appeal of brick whilst delivering the cost-, time-, labour-, and space-saving benefits of rainscreen façades. To ensure these façades delivered the necessary passive fire protection to both comply with the regulations and deliver a safe building for future occupiers, Siderise was approached to submit proposals for a solution that could demonstrably meet the project requirements for a 2-hour fire integrity rating.

Both Siderise’s RH Horizontal and RV Vertical Cavity Barriers have been re-engineered specifically for mechanically fixed ventilated brick slip cladding system configurations. To confirm compatibility with the NaturAL X System, Siderise undertook project-specific fire resistance testing at its Innovation Centre in Maesteg to several relevant standards using a representative build-up. The Siderise passive fire protection system achieved an E120 and I60 fire resistance rating, which exceeded competitor product performance, achieving the demands of the specification. For the curtain wall elements, Siderise CW-FS120 Firestop was also specified to provide a 2-hour fire resistance at the perimeter movement joint and ensure complete compartmentation throughout the building.

This combination of the NaturAL X Brick Cladding System with Siderise RH25 and RV25 Brick Slip Cavity Barriers helped to achieve a quick, methodical build process on the project. The Lamella core of RV25 Vertical Cavity Barriers has been tested to demonstrate that it can be used under increased compression— meaning that there has been no need to install intumescent pads running vertically between each rail. In addition to saving material costs, this helps to speed up the installation process, thus making the most of brick slip’s efficiency.

Siderise Site Services provided regular support to the installation teams, delivering product installation training and benchmark installations. This was followed up with regular onsite inspections to ensure the CW-FS120 Firestop, and RH25 Horizontal and RV25 Vertical Cavity Barriers were installed in line with recommendations and the tested configuration.

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