CASE STUDY
Balmoral Castle and Darwin House
The Balmoral Castle Project provides a minimum of 31 Community Supported Housing Flats to replace the existing Darwin House accommodation, as well as a mixture of 1,2 and 3 bedroom apartments on the site and was initiated following a petition received from the local community seeking redevelopment of the derelict Balmoral Castle pub.
CLIENT
City of Westminster
Architect
Levitt Bernstein Architects
Delivery date
Ongoing
Location
London
The Balmoral Castle Project provides a minimum of 31 Community Supported Housing Flats to replace the existing Darwin House accommodation, as well as a mixture of 1,2 and 3 bedroom apartments on the site and was initiated following a petition received from the local community seeking redevelopment of the derelict Balmoral Castle pub. The scheme comprises of two blocks of up to 7 storeys in height and will be of reinforced concrete frame construction.
CRE8 are appointed as structural engineers for the whole development and have led the design discussions on the choice of the most appropriate framing solution from both a structural and sustainable perspective. At the concept stage, several different framing options were considered including reinforced concrete, loadbearing masonry, cross-laminated timber and light gauge steel solutions. CRE8 provided advice to the architect on the framing parameters to be adopted in laying out the building which would enable all the various framing solutions to be considered; these parameters included maximum spans between load bearing columns or walls, structural zones and stacking requirements. To evaluate the sustainable credentials of each solution, CRE8 used the Environment Agency spreadsheet to calculate the embodied carbon dioxide within each frame type from cradle to site.
During the design development, CRE8 is working closely with the architect to incorporate the principles of Passivhaus and the recommendations of the HAPPI report 2009 within the buildings. This involved careful consideration of the balconies and external access walkways. Originally these had been envisaged as cantilever slabs with continuous thermal breaks. But to reduce the thermal transmittance across the building envelope, these were changed to propped balconies with only limited beam connections to the main structure with discrete thermal breaks.
CRE8 are appointed as structural engineers for the whole development and have led the design discussions on the choice of the most appropriate framing solution from both a structural and sustainable perspective. At the concept stage, several different framing options were considered including reinforced concrete, loadbearing masonry, cross-laminated timber and light gauge steel solutions. CRE8 provided advice to the architect on the framing parameters to be adopted in laying out the building which would enable all the various framing solutions to be considered; these parameters included maximum spans between load bearing columns or walls, structural zones and stacking requirements. To evaluate the sustainable credentials of each solution, CRE8 used the Environment Agency spreadsheet to calculate the embodied carbon dioxide within each frame type from cradle to site.
During the design development, CRE8 is working closely with the architect to incorporate the principles of Passivhaus and the recommendations of the HAPPI report 2009 within the buildings. This involved careful consideration of the balconies and external access walkways. Originally these had been envisaged as cantilever slabs with continuous thermal breaks. But to reduce the thermal transmittance across the building envelope, these were changed to propped balconies with only limited beam connections to the main structure with discrete thermal breaks.
