SCOTLAND’S oldest youth club has undergone a makeover with the help of a fortress-like facade.
FetLor Youth Club in Edinburgh, which dates back to 1924, now features Proteus Facades’ SC corten raincreen cladding.
The club has very few windows and only the roof structure to provide natural daylight.
The Fettesian-Lorettonian Boys’ Club was initially formed to remember the 371 former pupils from Fettes College and Loretto School who died in World War One. In modern times, the club is open to both boys and girls aged 8-18.
Its single-storey structure, built in the 1960s, had fallen into disrepair and a decision was made to replace it with a new £2.5 million building, clad in irregular depth corten steel panels to create a large coursed blockwork appearance, using the Proteus SC façade system.
James Robertson from James Robertson Architects said, “Our design for the new youth club comes from the sense that the members are in a fort, where they feel safe and protected.
“The corten cladding from Proteus, with its stepped, cuboid appearance delivers this vision perfectly.”
The stepped façade was created by designing the corten panels with 40, 100 or 160mm returns.
These were hung from a flush Proteus aluminium carrier system and installed by Thornton Roofing using Proteus 50 x 50mm mullions.
Proteus said the 2mm corten weathered steel cladding provides FetLor with “superior resistance” to atmospheric corrosion because it forms a natural protective layer. This will continue to develop and regenerate as the material weathers over time.
Proteus added that the firm manufactured the deeper panels with additional structural requirements to ensure they maintained an “optically flat face and sides, accentuating the impenetrable fortress-like appearance”.
