Glass Forever – John F Hunt Regeneration: Former GSK Building
The redevelopment of GlaxoSmithKline’s former west London HQ, acquired by Hadley Property Group in 2023, aspires to be a landmark scheme for Brentford, spanning 13 acres, that will deliver over 2,300 homes. The designs have been submitted by a team, including Haworth Tompkins, Metropolitan Workshop, dRMM and Studio Egret West.
John F. Hunt Regeneration, specialist contractors in construction, demolition and regeneration, is involved in the deconstruction of the building. The John F. Hunt Regeneration team has worked with Saint-Gobain Glass to recover end-of-life glazing from the building, first completing a full glass audit to confirm the glazing specifications on site.
The project offered a combination of laminated and toughened glass products as part of the initial strip-out. The glass was broken into cullet using the breakout table solution. The cullet was collected in Saint-Gobain’s cullet bags that were placed underneath the breakout table.
The full cullet bags were then collected by Saint-Gobain to be returned to their flat glass manufacturing facility in Eggborough, East Yorkshire, to be remanufactured into new, high-performance flat glass.
Richard Calcutt, Technical Project manager at Saint-Gobain Glass commented, “The success of this project hinged entirely on the team’s willingness to fully embrace and adopt new, precise methods of on-site deglazing and material preparation so that EOLG can be returned and remanufactured into new high performance flat glass products. To overcome these logistical hurdles, the John F Hunt regeneration team didn’t just look for a place to dump the glass, they pioneered a new, solution-oriented approach!
“I fully commend the John F Hunt Regeneration team for their commitment, innovation, and unwavering support of the circular transition. Their dedication ensures that the material we use today becomes the high-quality, high-performance products of tomorrow. Great job!”
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