Blog

Introduction

In mid-2020, Thermmark Ltd was asked by Make Shift to transform an outdoor space in London called Hackney Bridge. The space features a food hall and independent stores, as well as a co-working space and outlet for creative individuals to spend time. 

It was an honour to be contacted to be part of this amazing project, with both the customer and Thermmark immediately seeing how our team and products could help them with turning this into an incredible space for the local community to come together. 

Hackney Bridge is now a popular destination for locals and tourists as an entertainment venue, and for business owners as a place to host stores, bars, pop-ups, and street food stalls.

The Story of Make Shift

The Make Shift Foundation is a small team that works to open up opportunities for young people. With multiple projects located in London facilitating the development of businesses, products, and other creative endeavours, Make Shift has helped many young people in London to thrive. The development of the Hackney Bridge site was yet another project that allowed young people to create, network and meet like-minded people, and grow their own projects and ideas. 

The Opportunity 

As Hackney Bridge is a project and site in London that provides an area for local creatives to thrive, it needed to be a space that could inspire and attract businesses and customers.

Make Shift had a design in mind for the Hackney Bridge central yard, an area formed in the middle of the site by the now-converted warehouses. They had ideas for the way they wanted the floor design for the central yard to look like, which included many of the bold colours and patterns that can be seen in the post-installation photographs. 

The project in the chosen form was planned to be in existence for around 12 years before being turned into a residential area, meaning a long-term solution was in order, to ensure that the site will look colourful and vibrant for a long time. 

Why Make Shift Chose Thermmark

There are a few options that can be used when considering floor marking designs. Most people immediately think of floor paint, which is a cheaper alternative but can wash away and fade over time, making it good for a temporary solution. Painting can also bring human error along with it. Preformed thermoplastic is a permanent alternative that is cut to specific shapes and formed into a design in-house, ready for installation once it arrives on site.

Our ability to work with design plans like the one Make Shift sent over gave us a real advantage. Our design team being able to take a plan in concept form and draw it up into a form that can be cut out with our water jet technology means that we can bring the design to life. 

The material we manufacture also lasts for years, so they could be sure that the design was going to last for a long time once it was installed by our crew. 

Our Response

Make Shift had a timeframe they wanted to work to, and sent this through early on to make sure we could work to it. We agreed that working to the timeframe was possible for us, even for a project as large as this was, so were excited to go ahead.

The Results

This was a large project that took significant coordination between the customer and between several departments here at Thermmark; from sales to production to installations to get the designs reviewed and confirmed, priced, drawn up in CAD and approved, and allocating the right amount of time for the installation of such a large project, whilst still doing our best to meet the timeframe the customer had in mind. 

Initially, the customer sent through a design which after pricing up was more than they expected. We helped them to come up with a plan to reduce the cost of the materials needed, allowing us to deliver the project at a more affordable price.

We measured the design out using a DWG file the customer provided so knew exactly the amount of material to make in each colour. The silver colour you can see pictured was a bespoke mix made especially for the project. Although we have a large range of stock colours, we are happy to create new colours for bespoke projects and designs!

In the end, the project took around two weeks of installation time due to the large area covered, which was the amount of time we had allocated prior. Weather and time of year can have a large impact on the amount of days the installation process can take. 

Check out the video and photographs showing the completion of the project to see what an impact it has on the space! We hope the members of the Hackney Bridge project and all their collaborators have a great time using this vibrant facility for many years to come!

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If you’re interested in learning more about what we do, how we can help you, or would like to work with us, please reach out to us via phone on 0330 124 2750, via email at sales@thermmark.co.uk, or as a contact form request or live chat. Let us know about your project or the type of work you do – we’d love to talk and get to know about your project!