Passive fire protection for Birmingham student accommodation delivered by Siderise

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, the development will provide high-quality apartments and community spaces set across ten-storey and 29-storey tower blocks.

In order to blend the new high-rise towers into the existing architecture in the area, their detailed elevations are being 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 allows for the durability and timeless aesthetic appeal of brick, while delivering the cost/time/labour/space-saving benefits of rainscreen façades.

To ensure these façades deliver 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 two-hour fire integrity rating.

Fire resistance 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 conducted 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 and achieves the demands of the specification.

For the curtain wall elements, Siderise’s CW-FS120 Firestop was also specified to provide a two-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 and 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, thereby making the most of brick slip’s efficiency.

Regular support

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

*Further information is available online at www.siderise.com