Projects
New-Build
Residential Apartment Block, Lewisham, London, SE13
It is understandably in the interest of every developer to maximise the use of each site. Within an urban setting, many constraints could prevail, and sometimes these may compete against the desired maximisation. This site is no exception, bordered by a high, close railway embankment at the south, a low-rise industrial unit at the west, Victorian terraced housing at the east, and a narrow public footpath at the north. Below the surface, ground conditions prescribed that not inconsiderable foundations would be required after remediation of localised areas.
With the benefit of early involvement at the design development stage of this project, THe Consultants liased closely with the architect to co-ordinate details from the whole to the part; this exercise yielded benefits to assist the accuracy of the off-site prefabricated items of pre-cast concrete floor units and stair-flights, and the steelwork particularly of the curved feature roofs of differing radiuses, and the exercise greatly assisted the on-site progress of the contractor to rapidly comprehend and establish the buried services and enabling-works requirements and add certainty to their procurement and programme.
THe Consultants provided full structural engineering services dovetailed with our normal application of value-engineering to introduce cost savings and time savings wherever possible. This was successfully applied in the case of the foundations that were initially to be piled but resulting from our in-depth discussion and further on-site testing with the geotechnical specialist, deep strip foundations were viable and were indeed constructed accordingly to produce substantial savings of time and cost to the project.
THe Consultants also provided project management services to directly liase with Network Rail and demonstrate through documentation best endeavours that the ground-works to be performed firstly by specialist piling contractors and then by direct contractor-labour followed by the proposed operations to construct the building to roof level would comply with their stringent requirements relating to health and safety and the environment.
All in all, the management-planning and design-development and construction have culminated in an appealing new property that is a valuable addition to the in-demand housing stock of London.