Terminal 5 Heathrow Airport

Case Study

The scale of the T5 project and the complexity of logistics called for unique working methods, the aim being to provide best-in-class performance and innovative solutions. BAA wanted expertise and a proven track record in their primary suppliers and the Hathaway history of success on numerous large projects throughout the UK convinced BAA to choose Hathaway.

The overall scope of work eventually included the roofs of the main terminal and satellite buildings and full envelope specifications for the energy centre, multi-story car park, numerous sub-stations & outbuildings, plus elements of the Colnbrook logistics centre and a new container handling facility.

The main terminal building has an area of around 70,000m2 and is 396m long by 176m wide. It has one of the largest single-span roofs ever built at 156m in a single wave form.

The Satellite building was constructed in parallel and is the same length but the span is around 65m giving a total area of around 25,000m2.

The challenges included a programme that spanned all seasons, handover dates that were extremely critical to follow on contractors and design and logistics shaped by mandatory minimalised and ‘just in time’ delivery systems, and the need for reduced on-site erection times.

All this on a construction site set between the runways of one of the busiest airports in the world.

The principles of off-site fabrication were embraced and the Hathaway roofing solution was to build the roof in cassette form.

The cassettes were of optimum size and content and transportable on standard articulated trailers to the site from our fabrication facility in County Durham. As a priority, the ‘finished’ roof soffit was to be part of the cassette build to remove any internal soffit application from the critical path.

The final cassette design incorporated 80% of the roof build-up, fulfilled all requirements and expectations and we installed a total of 3600 of them in total to both buildings.

In addition, we installed over 9,000sqm of rooflight at T5 which was a bespoke solution developed to be tough enough for maintenance staff to walk on the roof light if necessary.

The statistics for the products on T5 are staggering and where possible we tried to use materials that were already in the market place and to use our own supply chain, which was 95 per cent achieved. T5 has been a massive success for Hathaway and stands as a testament to the commitment of the Hathaway personnel, operatives, and sub-contractors involved.