Techrete ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In 2025, Techrete is thrilled to celebrate its 40th anniversary, symbolising four decades of industry excellence. In honour of this milestone, Construction & Civil Engineering sat down with Mark O’ Dea, Chair and Owner, to discuss Techrete’ s current operations and what the next chapter may hold for the business going forward. He starts by sharing the history behind the company, from its initial inception to where it is today.
“ Techrete was formed in Ireland by Chris O’ Dea 40 years ago. Chris was a newly qualified engineer with an idea to develop a type of company that was virtually unheard of at the time – one that would specialise in the design, manufacture and erection of architectural precast concrete facades,” Mark begins.“ Techrete’ s first facility was set up in Howth Co., Dublin. In 1992, the company expanded into the UK with an office in Leicester and with a manufacturing facility in Brigg, North Lincolnshire a few years later. By the early 2000s, we had outgrown our Dublin facility and by 2008, we had moved to a greenfield site in North County Dublin. With the industry booming and a significant portion of our work deriving from London, we opened another office near Waterloo in 2016. Today, we are the largest specialist of our kind in the UK and Ireland, employing 375 people across four locations and having completed over 700 projects all across the UK and Ireland.”
We are essentially three companies in one; we provide a bespoke precast concrete façade solution beginning with design engineering, then offsite manufacturing, followed by construction onsite
▼ Marshgate for University College London. The façade was designed by Stanton Williams & Sheppard Robson to resemble the hand-picked concrete façade of the iconic Barbican. Photo credit: Tim Fisher
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