Smiley Monroe, a Lisburn-based manufacturer of conveyor belts and custom rubber parts for the materials processing equipment manufacturing sector, has just refurbished an existing 1980s storage facility, to provide open plan offices and a canteen for its Supply Chain team, which spend summer and autumn 2016 working out of converted shipping containers.
Marketing director, Tim Monroe, explains that Norbord’s SterlingOSB is used throughout the canteen area: “My design for the kitchen’s low-level cupboards, carcasses and worktops employs 100% SterlingOSB,” he says. “Our contractor, Woodhouse Workspace, worked closely with a bespoke joinery company, who applied three coats of smooth, matt protective lacquer to all OSB surfaces for hygiene, safety and longevity. This makes for a very pleasing contrast: a highly textured, yet soft-to-the-touch finish,” adds Tim.
Space-saving, high bars for metal stools around the canteen are also made from SterlingOSB, with galvanised scaffold poles providing the frames.
The industrial look is completed by a hard-wearing concrete effect vinyl floor, rough timber and raw steel clad walls, exposed metal conduit pipes and filament-style LEDs inside work lamp cages.
“I chose SterlingOSB board primarily for its visual impact - it gives an edgier, more raw aesthetic than plywood, which is too familiar a material for what I was trying to achieve,” says Tim.
Besides the distinctive texture and appearance of SterlingOSB, Tim says that the product’s affordability, strength and environmental profile were important factors in his decision to use it.
Tim is now already using SterlingOSB for another project. “It’s in a location that’s possibly a little more glamorous than Lisburn - our outdoor booth at Conexpo-on/Agg – North America’s largest construction show in Las Vegas this March”, he says.
“Our upper level hospitality suite, virtual reality pod, product zones and hexagonal Giants Causeway-inspired furniture, is all fabricated from SterlingOSB.”
