If you are not familiar with the brand, ASOS is the biggest online-only clothing retailer in the UK with 14.1 million active customers and a huge catalogue composed of 80,000 branded and own-brand products. ArcelorMittal provided Hacierba® liner trays and 2,000 tonnes of sections for the construction of ASOS first warehouse outside Great Britain.

British online retail company ASOS just started the activity of its first warehouse outside Great Britain, located in Großbeeren, in the south of Berlin. It was designed by Alcaro (a specialised investor for logistics facilities) with a roof structure built with ArcelorMittal Differdange steel provided via steel fabricator Stahlbau Süssen. ArcelorMittal Construction is also a contributor to the project with the supply of Hacierba® 150/600 SRSR liner trays for the façade of the warehouse.

Challenge accepted

The construction of this logistics centre was divided into two phases. For the first phase, which took place in 2016, four halls with a total surface of 46,000 m² were built. We had to deal with strict requirements for the construction.

First, ASOS demanded a maximum clear height to be able to place very high shelves in the hall, but due to fire safety considerations, the total height of the halls was limited. This challenge resulted in the development of a roof structure with a span of 26 metres and a height of one metre maximum which would contain the whole equipment of the building (electric cables and lamps, air conditioning, heating and sprinklers).

Second, the investor required the building to be certified by DGNB (Deutsche Gesellschaft für nachhaltiges Bauen), German Sustainable Building Council. Consequently, A.C.B.® beams were the best solution as they could meet all the requirements.

For the second phase, four new halls are being built, still using A.C.B.® beams, but this time the beams were made 6 cm higher to support additional loads due to the presence of solar panels on the roof.

ArcelorMittal's sustainable and cost-efficient solutions

ArcelorMittal Construction's Hacierba® liner trays provide very good load bearing capacity. They are the inner shell of the façade, bearing the wind loads and providing heat insulation of the building thanks to a mineral wool lining. It is an economic, lightweight solution that is easy to assemble. Furthermore, we could provide the customer very short delivery times.

ArcelorMittal Europe – Long Products and our technical department Tecom worked closely with customer Stahlbau Süssen to develop A.C.B.® beams that would fulfil all the requirements. A.C.B.® beams allow for a very efficient structure using only few resources and they are perfectly tailored to the loads of such a structure.

Moreover, the structural shapes used to produce them were made from 98% scrap material, with 70% of that being recycled steel. And they can be used after dismantling of a structure as construction elements in new projects.

In total, ArcelorMittal Dabrowa supplied 376 tonnes of sections without finishing and ArcelorMittal Differdange produced 1,665 tonnes of 13-metre A.C.B.® beams which were painted in red (the corporate color of Alcaro) and with the contact faces of the head plates covered with a special friction-resistant coating.

Just-in-time deliveries

As the construction site and the ArcelorMittal Construction's site in Landsberg are only 145 km apart, ArcelorMittal could provide a short delivery time for the liner trays; resulting in low transport cost for the customer, as well as less Co2 emissions.

For the beams, the delivery was just-in-time by trucks. The beams were bolted together two by two on the construction site and put in place as a roof girder. Logistics was even simplified on our side since our finishing and coating workshops are both located around the premises of the Differdange mill in Luxembourg; making internal logistics by rail simple and efficient. As for the other sections we supplied, they were produced in Differdange and in Dabrowa, Poland. The customer did the finishing and painting and delivered them directly to the construction site.

The first part of the building is already in use and the second part is expected to be completed in January 2018.

  • ASOS = As Seen On Screen
  • 14.1 million active customers
  • 2,000 employees – Headquarters in London
  • Sells more than 80,000 branded and own-brand products
  • Ships worldwide
  • 300,000 dresses sold per week
  • 85,000 men t-shirts sold per week

Copyrights pictures: Stahlbau Süssen GmbH