The overall 65 acre former Rolls Royce East Works site was purchased by St Francis Group & Marcol Industrial in 2007 and has undergone major demolition and remediation works to develop the site.

CWA were appointed to carry out civil and structural engineering design for all plots within the phases A-D portion of the site. The initial phases include 15 industrial and warehouse units with a total area of 580,000 sqft and with provision for future subdivision of the units to reflect market conditions.

CWA worked with the wider team to discuss a number of approaches to enabling works, infrastructure requirements and ground improvement as part of the early design. The team subsequently carried out tender designs for all on-plot civil and structural engineering aspects and liaised with the wider team during tender negotiations. CWA were also novated to the successful contractor and have carried out detailed design for all non-specialist design items and assisting coordination of contractor design elements.

The buildings are typically steel portal frames with mezzanines to provide office space, with pad foundations supported on vibro stone columns.

Prior to commencing the construction phase it was necessary to demolish the existing framed building and sub structures to the site perimeter.

The site consists of three new four and five storey buildings with the refurbishment of the remaining building fronting Bradford and Birchill Street.

As well as the refurbishment of the existing building, a two storey vertical extension has been incorporated as part of the proposed development.

The three new four and five storey buildings are steel frames on piled foundations with precast floor construction to all floors.

The new structure within the existing building consists of infill sections located in the otriums to increase the floor space.

Steel beams were designed to span between the concrete frame with resin anchor fixings, carrying a composite slab to support the raised access floor.

Smaller voids were infilled with composite slabs spanning between perimeter angles fixed to the concrete frame. At roof level, a new steel framed structure was added to provide an additional floor which was limited by the number of allowable column positions. Cellular beams were employed to span the large distances using composite action with the metal deck slab.

Along Colmore Row and Barwick Street, the face of the building at fifth and sixth floors was extended outward from the existing building line.

The Grade II listed, 19th century Banking Hall has been transformed into a new reception area whilst to the rear of the building the elevation has been removed and replaced with a full height glazed façade.

The city centre consultancy was chosen to carry out the civil and structural engineering work on a new 630-place three-form entry school at Newton Leys in Milton Keynes.

The building is approximately 108,500 sq ft of floor area, this includes 350 bed accommodation units, a gymnasium and cinema at ground floor level.

The sub structure comprises a complex system of stepped reinforced concrete ground beams and pile caps supported by CFA concrete piles. The superstructure comprises a braced steel frame with composite concrete suspended floors.

The below ground drainage has been defined to incorporate SuDS principles in order to control the quantity of surface water run-off reaching the public sewer. Flows have been attenuated by incorporating a flow control devise and an attenuation tank to temporarily hold the excess surface water which is released at a reduced rate.

The facility will be responsible for the production of the new hybrid powered taxi, followed shortly after by a full eco-friendly electric version.

Keeping in with the eco-friendly criteria of the product being assembled at the facility, the building itself had to be as eco-friendly as possible and therefore one of many eco-friendly products used was the addition of PV panels across the entire roof area of the production area.

Foundations were mass and reinforced concrete bases on vibro treated improved ground.

The use of lime and cement stablization and vibro treated ground also enabled a ground bearing slab to be adopted, resulting in considerable cost savings.
The drainage strategy included a ‘on site’ surface water attenuation system that was designed to facilitate and include for using the infrastructure ponds and swales that existed on the site prior to the development being built.

The building consists of two number two storey teaching wings consisting of different learning spaces for various size classroom occupation. There is then a central area to house both 250 seat and 500 seat lecture theatre with circulation and alternative breakout learning spaces linking to the classroom wings. There is a large double storey height main entrance atrium to the back of the lecture theatres with feature staircase providing access for the larger of the two lecture theatres.

The structure for this is a steelwork frame with a mixture of precast floor units to the teaching wings and insitu concrete slabs on metal decking to the more irregular areas of the circulation spaces and lecture theatre inclined seating. There is a specialist feature long span timber roof clear over the central area between the two classroom wings. Continuing the alternative break out learning spaces the external areas outside of the building consist of seating areas such to be an extension to that of the internal spaces.