Trevor Drummond, Sales & Marketing Director There are many challenges to designing functional interior spaces within commercial properties, not least adherence to strict building regulations. While the structural elements of a building are designed to suit long-term commercial requirements which rarely change, the internal layout often does need to change depending on the occupant. Architects and specifiers must navigate these changing needs and should design commercial interior spaces with flexibility in mind. One solution that reliably addresses this is demountable partitioning. A demountable partitioning system by nature can be dismantled and reconfigured to suit any change of requirements with maximum ease and minimal disruption. The market, however, doesn’t provide a ‘catch all’ solution.
MIDDAS Interior Solutions Ltd was founded to help solve market issues with design flexibility. MIDDAS are a UK-based manufacturer specializing in the design of demountable steel partitioning systems, ceilings, glazed screens and door sets primarily for controlled environments, cleanrooms, and a wide variety of other industrial applications. To improve compatibility across product ranges, the MIDDAS team engineered a range of bi-panel partitioning designed to be a fully compliant, ready-to-install system that coordinates with wall, floor, ceiling and door interfaces, including any fitted equipment. The bi-panel system is constructed from pre-finished panels hung from a structural framework that conceals services within the cleanroom fabric. The panels are installed in a non-progressive fashion, allowing for local reconfiguration as required and easy access for future changes and maintenance. There are also options for a free-standing construction, to avoid additional load of services on the building structure. This ‘end-to-end solution’ system gives clients great flexibility throughout the life of individual facilities.
The MIDDAS partitioning solutions follow the engineering principle of Designed for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA), which prioritizes design efficiency early in the process to lower production costs, simplify assembly and ultimately reduce time-to-market. Panels are designed to bespoke size requirements rather than standard sizing, eliminating the need for on-site cutting and saving on waste. This design feature speeds up installation and significantly reduces construction activity during fitout. More importantly, the range is backed by independent test data for integrity on fire, acoustic and air permeability ratings of the entire system (wall and ceiling panels, doors and glazing together as one installation). This means clients can be assured of its integrity as a complete system, rather than rely on the integrity of separately rated components that have not been tested together.
The highly experienced team is lean in all aspects of the business, not just manufacturing. In keeping a customer-first approach at its core, and by balancing agile design capabilities with short lead times, MIDDAS have earned a vast clientele over the years. The team has successfully delivered many prestigious projects, all with minimal resources. A recent example is the delivery of a free-standing structure for the Rosalind Franklin Laboratory, the largest government lab of its kind in the UK. MIDDAS worked in collaboration with the client’s design team to supply a 220,000 ft2 Cat 2++ laboratory complex housed within a high bay distribution warehouse. The internal laboratory structure was entirely independent of the building structure, with a fully modulated design to support all distributed mechanical and electrical services in a sequenced project build and fitout. The project had a fast-track delivery schedule of six-months. To meet this, the team delivered finished lab lines progressively before the entire project was completed, allowing beneficial occupancy for the client.
MIDDAS has a passion for getting it ‘right first time’ and prides itself on reacting quickly to changing client requirements
MIDDAS has a passion for getting it ‘right the first time’ and prides itself on reacting quickly to changing client requirements. With its established practices in sustainable manufacturing and investment in advanced technology, the team aims to address current market challenges with a firm focus on future product development for emerging markets (think dry rooms for electric battery manufacturing). The company’s next move is to expand internationally and maximize potential within the construction sector with its modular, free-standing structures for other applications within the advance manufacturing, pharmaceutical, education, automotive and healthcare sectors.
