The Opportunity

The site was originally occupied by a collection of buildings, some dating back to the mid-19th century. These structures needed to be carefully demolished to ensure that a police stations internal wooden staircase, façade and a pub entrance were retained - each had to be incorporated into the design.

The Operation

Steelwork starts at ground floor level and erection followed a regimented programme, whereby two floors are constructed at a time and then fully decked while the next two floors are being undertaken. As well as incorporating the retained features into the steelwork the new building marries into an existing building along the South Elevation up to the fifth floor.

The site is rectangular and bounded by irregular shaped roads on three elevations. Because of the road alignment all three of the project's facades are slightly skewed and from the 5th floor upwards the structure steps-in and floor space gradually decreases from 800m2 to 143m2 so that it doesn't interfere with the views of adjacent buildings'.

The Result

There are no straight lines in this project, except the lift shafts. The facades are all skewed and to incorporate the retained features we have a real mixture of elements. The design had to maximise all available space - including the floor-to-ceiling heights- and keep all services in the supporting floor beams.

Erecting the new steelwork around those retained features, coupled with the site's irregular shape, means the structure has been constructed with a variety of grid patterns and spans, with the longest approximately 15m.