News

Terrapin takes away the pain of poor facilities

A Terrapin building selected five years ago as a temporary solution has been so successful that it has become a permanent fixture. When Napp Pharmaceutical Holdings Limited upgraded its sports and social club in 2003 it hired a building from Terrapin. The facilities have been such a success with staff that the company has decided to buy the building. Napp, recently voted as No.12 in The Times 100 best company awards, moved to its current premises on the Cambridge Science Park in the early 1980s and now employs around 800 staff. Before the Terrapin building was erected, the sports and social club was housed in a number of relocatable buildings, essentially builders' huts that were a legacy from the construction of the company's main headquarters building. Produced using modern off-site construction methods, the new Terrapin building provided a quick and high-quality replacement for these inadequate facilities. The Terrapin building is a 2,600 square foot square structure, with a steel frame and flat roof. The internal partition walls are movable, which allows the building to be reconfigured to meet changing demands. The current layout includes an attractive bar area, full catering-standard kitchen and a flexible meeting space that can be used as one large room or converted into smaller meeting areas by moving two walls. By building offsite in a controlled manufacturing environment, Terrapin can ensure high levels of build quality and fit out, while ensuring that the highest levels of thermal and acoustic insulation are an integral part of the construction. Once the pre-engineered components that go to make the building have been manufactured they can be quickly assembled on site with the minimum of disruption, even in tight spaces and on difficult sites. Buildings can be tailored to the customer's exact requirements and can even be reconfigured or relocated if these requirements change. Jerry Ladell, chairman of the Napp Sports and Social Club, says the new club building had been so successful that when the end of the hire period was approaching, it was decided to buy it. "Our experience of negotiating with Terrapin was flexible, with a win/win approach in mind, where both parties reached an amicable agreement to purchase the building with a cost effective solution," he says. "There's nothing temporary about this building. It has all the facilities we need, and it will do us proud for many years to come It is very well-used by employees. The bar is open every night and there is a regular schedule of sporting activities. It is available for hire by staff and it is used for corporate entertaining, training and as a meeting room. Compared to our previous facilities this is much more modern, warmer and much more attractive." Terrapin is a privately owned company and is one of the UK's leaders in off-site construction. It has been expanding the potential of MMC since 1949 and now offers a range of complementary MMC technologies that can be used individually or combined to create bespoke building solutions for every application; panel based technology, volumetric design technology and steel framed, element build technology. Terrapin is the first company to be accredited under Buildoffsite's new supplier registration scheme operated by Lloyd's Register. The scheme standardises all aspects of the offsite process and ensures best practice, offering clients confidence in the assured levels of competence, methodology and safe working of the accredited supplier.

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Terrapin Ltd
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MK1 1JJ
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