The first of 731 brick facade panels that will clad Everton Stadium has been installed in the north west core of the site. Once completed, the design will incorporate elements of the historic Goodison Park latticework pioneered by the famous Scottish stadium architect, Archibald Leitch whose work remains on display in the shape of the iconic balustrades on the Bullens Road stand.
The quality of the brick design is important on this job not just because of the heritage but also because Everton Stadium architect Dan Meis has replicated the truss design from Goodison into the facade. Meis told the ECHO back in August: “This was an opportunity to do something different and then you add in the history of this site with the dock, the brick that surrounds it and the Mersey, all of that plays into this and it creates a place.”
The brickwork is produced for Everton as pre-cast panels of varying sizes and shapes at Laing O’Rourke’s Centre of Excellence for Modern Construction factory in the East Midlands and they estimate that this method allows them to install the brickwork two months earlier than would have been possible using traditional methods. Trying to get the right quality of brick work on a project of this size is incredibly challenging, labour intensive and dangerous in these environments, so manufacturing them off-site as brick panels improves the quality and the accuracy, and saves weeks in laying the bricks on-site in potentially inclement weather conditions by the Mersey waterfront at Bramley-Moore Dock.
READ NEXT
- Why Rafael Benitez wanted Everton to sell Alex Iwobi
- Leon Osman defends Farhad Moshiri and sends Everton takeover warning
- Everton suffer more VAR agony as Frank Lampard faces obvious Anthony Gordon and Demarai Gray question
-
James Tarkowski has already told Everton how they can make a big improvement
