jnpgroup consulting engineers services provided:
- Structural design
- Structural steelwork
- Retaining walls
- Foundation design
- Foul and surface water design
Grove Park
The project was a design and build contract for a new detached single storey, special schools 1300m2 classroom block at Grove Park and Hay Lane special Schools for Brent Council. jnpgroup consulting engineers formed part of the design and build team that were awarded the contract and services provided included the design and detail of foundations, substructure, superstructure, retaining walls and drainage.
The Site
The proposed classroom block was to be built on an existing raised grassed area within the rear grounds of the existing school. The site was slightly sloped, falling from east to west, with a steep bank along the northern perimeter adjacent existing playground area’s, with adjacent domestic housing along the south and east boundaries. The existing school was to remain in use throughout the works with one of the tarmac playgrounds being acquired as a contractors compound, with securely fenced off separate vehicle and workforce access.
The Design
The building is provided with a specialist Sarna Vert green roof system with built in drainage irrigation, sloping to internal RWP’s, supported by cold rolled purlins on profiled Glualm timber girders which cantilever approx. 1200mmm beyond the building’s façade. Jnpgroup used specialist software to design the cold rolled purlins and worked in close conjunction with the specialist Glulam company based in Denmark to produce fabrication drawings. The Glulam girders are supported internally on vertical columns and externally on columns angled to match the sloping 7 degree façade profile with jointed and angled connections to suit.
jnpgroup worked in association with a specialist aluminium company for the design of the external sloping façade glazing and cladding curtain walling including the design of complex bottom and top restraint rail connections.
jnpgroup were also responsible for collating all the specialist designs to check the overall building stability, specifying bracing /restraint requirements accordingly. Paying particular attention to ensure that bracing was aesthetically in balance with the overall building design and look.
jnpgroup designed the foundations with varying tops of footings to suit the sloping external ground levels and bottom of footings to accord with NHBC design guidelines for building near trees in clay soils and the variable depth of made ground across the site. Reinforced concrete retaining walls formed part of the foundation system where the building was cut into the steep bank along the northern perimeter.
jnpgroup were charged with designing the new foul and surface water drainage infrastructure and discharge points, to establish the most direct and economic solution for discharge of the foul and surface water from the new building via the existing school drainage infrastructure, into existing Thames Water sewers.
This solution necessitated detailed investigations, co-ordinated and supervised by Jnpgroup into the layout, capacity and condition of the existing drainage network. Once capacity in the network was ascertained jnpgroup were able to confirm a free discharge into the existing foul network and a controlled discharge of max 2l/s into the surface water network, via a Hydro-brake flow control device specified to suit attenuation storage requirements
Project Value: £?M
Client: Brent Council
Architect: TPA Studio Ltd Architects
