The Patera Building prototype, a significant example of British high-tech architecture, was manufactured in Stoke-on-Trent in 1982 by Patera Products Ltd., and is one of only two surviving examples of this prototype, currently identified as at risk of demolition by heritage organisations. In 1980, Michael Hopkins architects and Anthony Hunt Associates engineers were instructed by LIH (Properties) Ltd to design a prefabricated, relocatable industrial building with a 216 m² floor area, capable of rapid assembly and disassembly.
Longton Industrial Holdings Plc (LIH), an industrial group based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, commissioned designs for an "off-the-peg" relocatable industrial building made from steel. They sought to expand their interests in steel fabrication, intending to sell the buildings as a product. The Patera Products Ltd factory where the Patera buildings were made and where the first two were erected was in Victoria Road, Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
Clarification This article traces the history of the prototype Patera Building completed in 1982 under the ownership and direction of Longton Industrial Holdings Plc through their wholly owned subsidiary companies LIH (Properties) Ltd, and Patera Products Ltd. The article does not cover "Patera Building System" (a later development of the Patera concept using several of the fabrication techniques such as the innovative panels, but with alternative traditional structural frames). The article does not cover the period during which the Patera concept was promoted under a trading name "Patera Products" ("Patera Products" was an acquired name, unrelated to the original company Patera Products Ltd), nor during the period in which the Patera concept was promoted under the trading name of Patera Engineering Ltd (established 1988), also an acquired name. Patera Engineering Ltd did not manufacture any Patera Buildings.
History The first prototype Patera Building was manufactured by Patera Products Ltd in 1982 by a workforce of experienced hands-on engineers and craftsmen drawn from industries in the area then in decline such as coal-mining. As almost every component was designed anew for the prototype, a high degree of accuracy was required as these prototype components formed a standard model to which future components were manufactured. The idea of the Patera project was to supply a factory-finished industrial workshop. The buildings were standardised, 18 metres long by 12 metres wide, with an internal height of 3.85 metres throughout. They were fully finished in the factory, ready for bolting together at the desired location. Three men with a forklift truck could erect one in a matter of days. It was seen in the context of vehicle- or boat-building technologies in terms of its light weight construction. Each building needed a reinforced concrete raft slab as a base to which the structure was fixed using specially designed steel castings. All the buildings' services—power, telephone cabling, water, etc.—were distributed within the depth of the building envelope. To support panels struck by automotive-industry hydraulic presses, constituent parts of the Patera Building structure were pin-jointed for ease of handling and assembly. At the centres of the spans of the frames were unique "tension-only" links—special fittings able to respond to varying structural loads. Under normal conditions the structure acted as a three-pin arch. In other conditions, such as wind up-lift, it acted as a rigid frame. This innovation meant that very slender lightweight steel tubes could be used for the portal frame trusses. The "Patera Building Stoke-on-Trent for Longton Industrial Holdings (Properties) Ltd" received a commendation in the British Constructional Steelwork Association's Structural Steel Design Awards 1983, sponsored by the British Steel Corporation and the British Constructional Steelwork Association Ltd. The Judges' Comments: "The creative thought that lies behind this design breaks new ground in the excellence of its parts and their skilful integration in the making of an architectural whole. It is a delight to see such innovation and care being applied to the production of precisely fabricated, economical, small buildings."
Use of reclaimed land The Berry Hill area of Stoke-on-Trent had a history of coal mining and brick-making. The Patera Building prototype was built on drained and reclaimed land there, circumstances that informed the design—requiring lightness of weight and raft foundations. In the 1960s, visionary architect Cedric Price had proposed a Potteries Thinkbelt design which sought to make use of decommissioned railway routes following the Beeching Cuts and the scarred landscape of coal mining to provide linked learning centres for a technical industry-based curriculum. The first design studies for the Patera project in 1981 were for a managed industrial estate consisting of thirty or so standard Patera Buildings sited at the former Mossfield colliery in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent.
Structural innovation
Anthony Hunt Associates devised a lightweight, all-steel structure, a hybrid three-pin arch. Made in easily transportable component form, once assembled it offered significant advantages:
The elimination of cross-bracing elements to the roof and wall trusses; The use of panel assemblies as a diaphragm to prevent buckling of the lower (innermost) truss boom during compression; Introduction of a tension-only link at midspan to prevent outer roof truss booms from buckling under compression; Use of line bracing and secondary high-tensile-strength steel cross-bracing at the knee-joint position to prevent "flipping" of the structure under certain wind-loading; Introduction of steel castings for ease of fabrication of pin-joint connections; Development of distinctive cast steel base plates to allow structural bolted connections to a flat concrete-slab base; Wind loading analysis which allowed use anywhere within the UK mainland and climates where a similar pattern of wind speeds might prevail.
Innovation in manufacturing techniques With steel panels pressed and factory-finished rather than being cold-rolled, and with all components accurately sized and with their fixings prepositioned, the following advantages ensued:
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