Woolgar Hunter Magazine | issue 4 - Winter 2017-2018
New directors New promotions at Woolgar Hunter
Stockholm
Our latest cultural trip
Dalbeattie School Ask The Engineer The architect talks about ‘that’ space
What is meant by SuDS and how does it work?
University of Stirling : INTO Building Engineered by Woolgar Hunter ŠAndrew Lee Photography
Welcome It has been a quick year for us and l am pleased to note, a profitable one. Once again our existing clients have been good to us and supplied us with a stream of repeat commissions; and we have also been successful in landing a few significant commissions from new clients such as, Parabola at Edinburgh Park and Get Living in High Street, Glasgow. These are large multi-building projects where my Building Civils colleagues have been involved through the masterplanning stage, looking at the engineering strategy of the sites to ensure a sustainable and economic design for the site has been developed. Our structural teams are now involved in working within that strategy to deliver the design of the buildings. It has also been a good year for us in terms of staff development, l am particularly pleased with the promotion of our new Project Directors. Our feature article illustrates our strength in depth with a new level of management emerging from within our own ranks, which is very satisfying. We have also had success in recruiting this year, particularly in appointing Neil Currie to join us in Manchester. Neil is a talented engineer with a wealth of experience of working on complex projects and l believe he will be a valued asset for us as he leads that office. Looking ahead, we are cautiously optimistic albeit, l believe the market will soften a little with the external pressures on it. The dark days of 2007/08 taught us harshly the need for a spread portfolio and a good mix of public and private sector projects. The article on page 10 about the recently completed Dalbeattie Campus is a good example of our success in the Public Sector. The project is a credit to those involved and I am delighted that Craig Heap of Holmes Miller Architects has taken some time out to pen a few lines for us. As anyone involved in the property / construction industry knows, what we need above all else is stability in the market. The political turmoil of the last few years has made it difficult for everyone and the challenges of Brexit are still to be felt. However, I recently spoke to someone a lot more interested in politics than myself and he was getting excited by the fact that we might get through a full year without a major election; mind you, as excited as he was, I could not get him to take a bet on it!
William Neilson Managing Director
info@woolgarhunter.com www.woolgarhunter.com Glasgow - London - Manchester Welcome | layout Woolgar Hunter Magazine | Winter 2017/18 |
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University of Glasgow | Glasgow Academy Wolfson Wohl, Cancer Research Centre | The Saunders Centre, Science and Technology Building Engineered by Woolgar Hunter
contents On the cover: In this winter edition our cover features our recently promoted management team. Samuel F. photographed them on a sun drenched day in Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow, nice and early to miss the buskers and the champagne set from the nearby Rogano. He decided to revisit the technique of a continuous wrap image he used in earlier editions, ‘to nudge the reader into turning over to see the rest of the photo and provide space for the subjects.’
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News
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Ask The Engineer
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Dalbeattie Learning Campus
Engineering Club
LIVE PLAY LEARN WORK CARE COMMUNICATE
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Stockholm Cultural & Study trip
New Directors The Big Idea
Postcard from the past
Partnership What’s on? With the University of Salford
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INTO Building: University of Stirling by Architects Page & Park, p.2 ©Andrew Lee photography Wolfson Wohl Centre: University of Glasgow by Architects RMJM, p.4 ©Samuel F. - The Saunders Centre : The Glasgow Academy by Architects Page & Park Architects, p.4 ©Samuel F, - Dalbeattie Learning Campus: hub South East / Graham Construction by Architects Holmes Miller, p.5 ©McAteer Photograph - Morgan Stanley Building: HFD Group by Michael Laird Architects, p.14 ©Samuel F. - HQ Grangemouth: INEOS O&P (UK) Ltd by Michael Laird Architects, p.5 ©David Barbour - Skytower: Sculpture by Rob Mulholland p.15 ©Rob Mulholland - Evolve: Sculpture by Rob Mulholland p.15 ©Samuel F. - The Big Idea: Big Idea Company Company by architects BDP, p.17 ©Valerie Paterson Photography - The Lock Apartments: Dandara Group by Architects MBLC, p.20 ©Woolgar Hunter.
Contents | layout Woolgar Hunter Magazine | Winter 2017/18 |
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news
LIVE PLAY LEARN WORK CARE COMMUNICATE We are involved in designing places for people to live; sports & leisure facilities for them to play; schools and universities for them to learn; offices and factories for them to work; and hospitals to provide care when sick. We also design telecoms infrastructure to allow modern day communications networks to flourish.
Private Rented Sector (PRS) or ‘build to rent’ accommodation is the new darling of the residential sector. Attractive to developers and investors alike, the sector has grown substantially in recent years, driven by the simple fact that demand for housing has outstripped supply. Studies have shown that PRS is viable not only in London, but also in locations where there are strong employment rates and lower land values. Woolgar Hunter is delighted to be involved in the design of several substantial PRS schemes with two large projects recently submitted for Planning: A 7.5-acre site in the heart of Glasgow’s fashionable Merchant City district delivering 700 plus homes for Get Living and the 400+ home Holland Park project for MODA Living in the centre of Glasgow.
We are delighted to have been recently commissioned on the ‘Govan Stones’ project which celebrates the unique collection of early medieval stones carved in the 11th century to commemorate the power of those who ruled the Kingdom of Strathclyde. We are also pleased to be involved in the refurbishment of the Perth Museum which is one of the oldest purposebuilt museums in the UK, being opened in 1824. It is however showing signs of age and the upgrade is part of a programme of capital developments by Perth & Kinross Council, and its partner Culture Perth and Kinross, to transform the facility. We are also We are also involved in the design of a new Collection Store facility to house collections from Perth Museum & Art Gallery and Council archives in a secure and controlled environment.
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In nearby St Andrews, works are well underway to create a new tennis centre at the University, which is part of a phased improvement of the campus sports facilities we have been involved in for a number of years. These will be enjoyed by students of the proposed new campus residencies, the first of which are currently being constructed by Sir Robert McAlpine. The new residencies will house 400 rooms in two buildings within the North Haugh Campus, together with a further 725 new rooms to replace the existing offering at the nearby Albany Park site.
New primary schools at Loanhead and Roslin were successfully completed for Midlothian Council in 2017, providing new facilities for 756 pupils. In dumfries and Galloway, the £24m Dalbeattie Learning Campus was opened. Nearby, Phase 1 of the Dumfries Learning Town project is progressing well with construction of both the ‘North West Campus’ and ‘The Bridge Learning Hub’ due to be completed in 2018. In Kilmarnock, construction of the £40m William McIlvanney Campus is also ongoing. We are also delighted to have recently been commissioned on the new Craigmiller High School project with Hub South East.
We currently have a number of significant office building projects at various stages of Design. Completed: HFD’s new commercial office development for Morgan Stanley was handed over in December; the 154,000ft2 Grade A office sits on the southern half of their prime site in the heart of the commercial district. Design: Our engineers are also busy working on ‘The Grid’, another new Grade A office building this time a 275,000ft2 for M&G Real estate, a few streets away from the Morgan Stanley building. Tender: The site start of a new 135,000ft2 Grade A office for Formal Investments on Bath Street is imminent. More good news from Parabola! They have commissioned us on another project at Edinburgh Park, this time on a new commercial office development alongside Allford Hall Monaghan Morris architects. Away from offices we have had success in the industrial sector, especial distilleries. The new 7,500m2 bottling hall and accompanying grain distillery we have been involved in has been recently completed in Ireland for Tullamore Dew. In addition, the first phase of the six bonded warehouses to facilitate the new Isle of Arran Distillery in Lagg is now complete, with the visitor centre commencing on site in January.
Two campus healthcare projects have been keeping our Building Civils team busy. In Edinburgh, the on-going design of new acute mental health facilities at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital is currently focussed on the renovation of the Victorian B Listed MacKinnon House. Meanwhile, in central Scotland, site works are well underway on both the Primary Care Hub and Residential Care Hub buildings that are being created by Robertson Construction for Hub East Central and NHS Forth Valley, at Stirling Care Village. The magnificent new Prince & Princess of Wales Hospice Building, designed by Ryder Architecture is well underway. Our input is drawing to a close as the building works are nearing completion with an imminent opening in the Spring. We are also working with the St Andrews Hospice in North Lanarkshire on an extensive refurbishment, which is also substantially complete.
Telecommunications are an increasingly vital part of all our lives, with the relentless quest for faster, better and more secure coverage showing no sign of easing. We expect to be able to communicate wherever we are, whatever the time. However, not all areas enjoy the same level of coverage and so whilst some are relishing the prospect of 5G in the near-future, many rural areas lack basic coverage. Woolgar Hunter has a long history of involvement in the communications sector and our specialist team is happily working at both ends of the spectrum: designing towers to provide an emergency network in outlying areas and checking the capacity of existing structures to accommodate the 5G rollout. News | layout Woolgar Hunter Magazine | Winter 2017/18 |
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In each issue one of our in-house experts addresses a question regularly asked of us, and in this edition we deal with SuDS. Sustainable drainage systems are now required by the local authorities on every project, but many still have little understanding of them or the need for them.
Q. WHAT IS MEANT BY SuDS AND DOES IT WORK?
A.
Heavy rainfall or seemingly endless drizzle are common occurrences when living in this northern island which unfortunately frequently results in flooding to some extent. Flooding is one of the earth’s most common and destructive natural phenomenon; when it occurs in the wilderness it is not an issue, indeed it can nourish and clean the land. However, as humans we have traditionally settled in flat fertile parcels of land adjacent to rivers, which are otherwise known as floodplains - the area nature has set aside for expansion of rivers in times of flood. In our conurbations we not only build on floodplains but as we like our feet and heads dry. We have constructed impermeable surfaces such as roads, pavements and roofs from which we collect the water in outlets and discharge at ferocious velocity in peak times to our sedate streams and rivers, excacerbating flooding and land erosion - so basically we want to settle in the wrong areas and don’t want to get wet! How can we resolve this conundrum? The answer is of course not to build in areas that may flood and limit the amount of impermeable areas we build. However, given this is not going to happen we can better the situation by providing flood defence measures to our existing developments, but this is an expensive and last resort measure. The better answer is to design ‘sustainable’ drainage systems for 1our dwellings, towns and cities, so that we mimic nature by holding heavy rain in the ground and slowly release it to our watercourses. The aim of a sustainable drainage system, termed ‘SuDS’ (Sustainable urban Drainage Systems) is to do just that.
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Densely populated historic urban areas are a mass of hard surfaces, roads and buildings which predominantly drain to Victorian sewage systems, which were concerned principally with public health issues, collecting surface water and foul water drainage into one sewer (termed ‘combined drainage’) and discharged to the nearest watercourse as quickly (and usually relatively undiluted), as possible. The problem with this historic approach is that it
prevented rainwater from naturally absorbing into the ground. This approach has left our conurbations vulnerable to flooding as sewers struggle to deal with the surface water run-off which is steadily increasing year-on-year due to climate change. A sustainable drainage solution should seek to use ‘natural’ measures to attenuate and treat surface water run-off, such as changes in topography and new secondary water courses to create storage; and ground filtration or bioretention planting to provide treatment. The exciting news is that SuDS does work, as designers we can limit the flow from new developments to that equivalent of greenfield flow by introducing SuDS best practice into designs. Working closely with architects and landscape architects on several large masterplans, we are designing and integrating the use of SuDS measures as landscape features to enhance the development.
8 | layout Woolgar Hunter Magazine | Winter 2017/18 | Ask The Engineer
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SUDS DESIGN CIRIA has prepared a SuDS Manual which provides guidance covering ‘the planning, design, construction and maintenance of Sustainable Design Systems (SuDS), which puts forward a set of overarching principles of design. These are:
THE FOUR PILLARS OF SUDS DESIGN: SuDS use the opportunities and constraints of a site to engineer a solution wich will maximise benefit for Water Quality, Quantity, Amenity and Biodiversity holistically instead of dealing which each separately.
Water Quantity
Amenity
Support flood risk management & maintain and protect the natural water cycle.
Create and sustain better places for people.
Water Quality
Create and sustain better places for nature.
Biodiversity
Manage the quality of run-off to prevent pollution.
Historically the aim was to collect water from our urban areas as quickly as possible, with little thought of attenuation or treatment and to convey it to the nearest watercourse through a piped system. This gives little consideration to Water Quality, Quantity, Amenity and Biodiversity; the four pillars of SuDS design. The current thinking is that through the use of SuDS, we can mimic nature in the way it deals with surface water. We can provide storage to attenuate surface water in times of storm; naturally treating it to filter out pollutants before releasing slowly into, preferably a neighbouring watercourse or a sewer network.
QUANTITY
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SUDS DESIGN
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For further information on sustainable drainage solutions please contact us on info@ woolgarhunter.com
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Interestingly good sustainable design can be applied sympathetically in urban settings without the need for grass swales basins and the like. The Dutch, (who know a bit about flooding) have led the way with innovative SuDS solutions, most notably at Benthemplein in Rotterdam where an urban city park in Rotterdam is cleverly disguised as a storm water management centre or as they call it a ‘Water Square’. The urban park is essentially a set of recessed tiered play Create & su ff tio spaces which in times of heavy rainfall are allowed o k. s sta r n ood ter u to flood and hold over 1.5 million litres of water in r a fl l w f f be collected from surrounding roofs and paved y oent o atura n e surfaces, then slowly release that runoff back into the groundwater and a nearby canal. The spaces, when dry, include ball courts, BIO skateboard ramps and a performance space. WATER
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Ask The Engineer | layout Woolgar Hunter Magazine | Winter 2017/18 |
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case study
DALBEATTIE LEARNING CAMPUS In 2012 Dumfries and Galloway Council agreed to bring together Dalbeattie High School and Dalbeattie Primary School and Nursery onto a single site, replacing ageing existing buildings with a new shared campus facility on the site of the existing High School. Graham Construction was chosen to deliver the Holmes Miller designed Campus through Hub South West Scotland for Dumfries and Galloway Council. Woolgar Hunter was commissioned as civil, geo-environmental and structural engineers on the project.
The site chosen for the new Campus, adjacent to the original Dalbeattie High School, sits to the west of the town in a wonderful rural setting, offering an opportunity to create a community facility that exploits the space and views; embracing the landscape. However, as wonderful as the site was, it was not without its challenges. Our geo-environmental team quickly identified a risk of flooding, poor and variable ground conditions together with services issues such as a culverted watercourse and HV power cables (both buried and overhead) crossing the site. Our team developed an engineering strategy to quantify these issues and identified economic solutions for them to help realise the architect’s vision for the campus. Andy Ross, who led the Woolgar Hunter team, explains “The site issues were identified early through desktop studies and quantified through subsequent site investigations. The investigative exercise allowed us time to develop a site-wide engineering strategy to deal with the issues. Mind you, it can be an iterative process, you think you have solved one issue only to realise you have worsened another! For example, an early eureka moment was to open up the buried watercourse that crosses the site and create opportunity for sustainable drainage; however, the issues with dealing with the buried HV cables effectively precluded this, so it was back to the drawing board on that one! But setbacks should be used as a spur, and as we moved through the design we nibbled away relentlessly at the issues, eventually providing an efficient and sustainable solution”. That solution involved dealing with the potential flood issues by raising site levels locally to mitigate flood risk and providing compensatory storage within an area of existing marshy grassland at the centre of the site. However, this was not straight forward as Andy notes, “increasing site levels involved placing approximately a metre of upfill onto the existing soils. Whilst the building is piled, we were concerned about the risk of long term consolidation settlement of weak, compressible subsoils due to the weight of upfill’. Andy’s team decided to preload the external areas and induce accelerated settlement of the soils by surcharging in conjunction with use of vertical band drains. The construction programme allowed this preloading to be undertaken concurrently with construction of the building, with construction of external works following completion of preloading’. Craig Laughlan, a Project Director within our Geoenvironmental team, who worked alongside Andy on this project said ‘ This was a great solution, and one we have used before. We effectively squeeze the soil by adding additional weight and the vertical band sand drains allow water to escape thus ensuring we get the predicted longerterm settlement in a much shorter time frame. It is a sustainable solution as we are working with the existing soils without the need for artificial material to be added’.
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10 | layout Woolgar Hunter Magazine | Winter 2017/18 | Dalbeattie Learning Campus
The new building is the largest in Dalbeattie and it houses three distinct elements of nursery, Primary and Secondary schools which benefit from a central spacious shared social space.This space is a critical element of the building and Craig Heap from Holmes Miller Architects was delighted to witness that ‘that’ space works! I never thought I could ever have been that happy hearing ‘Take That’ belted out on karaoke, but that day the smile on my face couldn’t have been any wider as we swayed. hands aloft, in sync with the teachers and pupils. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief and our hearts filled with joy; we knew that all the design workshops, collaboration, consultation, late nights, head scratching, disagreements and four years of hard work had been worth it. The central space wasn’t just doing everything it had been designed to do, it was doing so much more. That day, we witnessed the space providing a supporting backdrop to a wide-ranging series of school events including a sombre Remembrance Day memorial service, a busy primary lunch sitting, a fun-filled secondary lunch sitting and a joyful whole school karaoke concert starring the teachers, with the winner decided by clap-ometer! Our journey to this moment started some four years ago with lots (and lots) of consultation to garner as much knowledge and insight as possible, to allow us to develop a design for a new campus that would bring the existing three elements onto one shared site. That early consultation and research was critical to nurture a collective sense of ownership; this new facility was going to be for everyone,
and everyone would get their chance to take responsibility for what it was going to look like and how it would function! The lids did not come off our pens for the first six months, until we fully understood the basic accommodation requirements and also the dreams and aspirations that this new learning campus should support. When we did start designing, it was relatively painless to develop a concept design that was aligned with stakeholder aspirations. It was almost as if the same picture had developed in everyone’s imagination during the consultation process. A concept design embedded within the context of Dalbeattie and the desire to reflect three uses in a series of extruded gable forms whilst, and most importantly, at all times feeling like a collective that can seamlessly be brought together in a single shared central flexible space. The structural solution was crucial to realise this concept, with a simplified repeatable gable form developed to define the zones, whilst maintaining a column free central space. A large stage is flanked on either side by ‘Hellerup’ stairs with retractable bleacher seating, offering a variety of options to fit the use. The first floor balcony around the space provides further viewing opportunities and as we witnessed, an ideal place to sway along to a Take That favourite! As with a pen or iPad, the building is merely another aid (albeit slightly bigger and more expensive) in the delivery of the curriculum and it is ultimately down to the users to maximise its potential. It was very uplifting to witness the pupils, staff, teachers and community embracing this new facility as their own and filling its volumes with a vibrant and excitable atmosphere befitting of a modern community learning facility. Dalbeattie Learning Campus is in good hands, we wish you a healthy and prosperous journey!
Dalbeattie Learning Campus | layout Woolgar Hunter Magazine | Winter 2017/18 |
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due recognition
At Woolgar Hunter we have a strong management team but to maintain our growth we needed to strengthen our team and this year we did just that. On a sunny Glasgow morning, Layout caught up with the guys to hear what they had to say.
Recent promotions of Craig Laughlan, David Manson, Kenny Irvine and Richard Campbell to the level of Project Director plus the promotion of Andy Ross to Director have strengthened our existing management board and created a new level of management to aid in the running of projects. The really exciting news is that the new positions are filled from within our own ranks!
On the cover, from left to right : Richard Campbell, David Manson, Kenny Irvine, Andy Ross and Craig Laughlan
Andy Ross says his team has had a great year, Andy has been concentrating on projects with a large external works element, such as the new Mental Health Hospital project at the REH in Edinburgh, a £200m plus project over a number of phases. The project involves a large site in the Morningside area of Edinburgh with several new builds and the refurbishment of an old Victorian hospital building. They have also been involved in the highly successful Dalbeattie project (featured on page 10) which again has a large external works element. Andy’s promotion means that he will now head up our Building Civils team which will look after the type of project Andy is used to but will also look at masterplan projects with an emphasis on sustainable design in term of
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“ The really exciting news is that the new positions are filled from within our own ranks !
”
drainage solutions and external works solutions. As Andy says, “it is an exciting time for the civils team and I am delighted to be given the opportunity to lead it”. In Andy’s new role he enjoys working closely with Craig Laughlan. Craig has been a stalwart of our Geoenvironmental team for the past 11 years and is typically most visible at the front-end of our projects, checking the condition and viability of sites to help with the all-important due diligence process; and preparing information to support the planning and design processes. Says Craig, “we’ve seen the emphasis change in recent years, with funders increasingly looking for comfort that they are making sound investments in safe sites. We have a varied and exciting portfolio of projects on the go and in the pipeline, which will require particularly close interaction between the “geo and civils teams”. David Manson runs a civil engineering team, and works closely with Andy Ross, Director of the wider Building Civils team. David explains “The civil engineering aspects of mainstream building projects has increased massively in prominence in recent years, driven by ever more stringent drainage requirements and the rising cost of waste disposal. We’re involved with some large scale, campus style developments right now and getting the engineering strategy aspects right at an early stage really is the key to a successful development”.
Kenny Irvine works within one of our building structures teams and has a particular interest in the use of computer modelling in design, having been instrumental in the design of many of our tall and complex developments. Kenny says “we’ve been designing in 3-D for many years now; however, with the fast-paced advances in modelling technologies and computer capacity, we can model bigger and increasingly complex structures in more realistic timescales and can pass models seamlessly between technician and designer. I’m really excited to see where this takes us in the future, particularly thinking about the use of computational analysis of complex geometries and building forms, the use of 3-D modelling tools such as RHINO and Grasshopper as a conduit to REVIT; and of course, the emerging use of Virtual Reality devices”. Woolgar Hunter has always been proud of its close collaboration with architects and its active role in the design process, and Richard Campbell continues this tradition. Having graduated in Building Design Engineering, Richard maintains close links with architectural design and with a keen interest in sustainability, he is proud to have worked on the UK’s first certified Passivehaus dwelling. Richard says, “I enjoy all aspects of engineering but do have a particular soft spot for the unusual and I especially enjoyed my recent collaborations with artists Rob Mulholland and Nicola Atkinson”.
Due Recognition | layout Woolgar Hunter Magazine | Winter 2017/18 |
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Morgan Stanley Building | INEOS O&P (UK) HFD Group, Waterloo Street, Glasgow | New HQ Building at Grangemouth Engineered by Woolgar Hunter
the engineering club Woolgar Hunter’s engineering club is alive and well! We asked William Neilson, who had the original idea for it, to tell us a little about it. Yes, I am afraid we have an Engineering Club! But then, is that such a bad thing? The Club is an opportunity to allow us to celebrate engineering, architecture, art, design, in fact anything that takes our fancy. We decided, after a few beers, to call it an Engineering Club, as that was the ‘naffest’ name we could think of! You see, traditionally graduates of architecture, sculpture, fashion and the like are happy to talk about their disciplines, using words such as ‘enjoy’, ‘love’ and ‘fun’, whilst in engineering we have tended to be more reserved. I know this is changing (at least in some schools), but engineering graduates and technicians still need a push! The name Engineering Club gives you nowhere to hide, you have to embrace it and enjoy it, love it and have fun; after all if it was just about money surely we would do something else! Richard Campbell, Kenny Irvine, David Manson and Craig Laughlan, the current club custodians are tasked with setting a broad agenda and we try to get together reasonably frequently. In the last year, as well as our regular meetings we have had sculptor Rob Mulholland, whom we worked on his fantastic steel sculpture at the Cuningar Loop, chat to us about his work and his passion for it. Solius, a firm of creative visual designers who ‘create cutting-edge digital content to elevate levels of stakeholder engagement and entertainment’ also attended a session and talked to us about their work in the world of architectural modelling and virtual reality. On the back of that we are now creating virtual reality models of most of our projects; albeit these are Revit based, but we are now looking at using a gaming format such as ‘Unreal Engine’ to improve the experience. For me this is what the Club is all about, a general chat and a bit of fun, which is then the catalyst for us improving our service to clients. Looking forward, we have a number of events planned for 2018 and we are also hoping to use the Club as a platform to enable our collaboration with the University of Salford to bear fruit. If you have any ideas or something to showcase, please let us know.
The Engineering Club | layout Woolgar Hunter Magazine | Winter 2017/18 |
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looking into our archives Back in 1990, roundabout the time the story about United States’ President Clinton’s alleged affair with Monica Lewinsky broke out and ‘Titanic’ was breaking box office records, Woolgar Hunter was commissioned to design the structure for a new exhibition building called The Big Idea. We take this opportunity to revisit the project.
THE BIG IDEA
Located on the southern tip of the Ardeer peninsula in Ayrshire, the project was predominantly millennium funded and the (big) idea was that it would be a celebration of invention based on the site of the former dynamite company founded in the late 1800’s by Alfred Nobel. The building, which was opened in early 2000, is a large grass-covered concrete shell, which nestles beautifully into the remote landscape accessed by the public from a retractable pedestrian footbridge spanning the River Ayr, the design of which was also part of our commission. The project architects, Building Design Partnership (BDP), based the shape on part of a torus which, a quick delve into long forgotten university maths textbooks tells us that, a torus is a surface formed by revolving a circle about a line. Often, tori (the plural of ‘torus) are doughnut shaped. It is formed by revolving a circle about the z-axis. Yeah, whatever! we hear you say, however, the interesting part (did we just write that – Ed) for the engineers on the project was that the unusual shape of the building is effectively a slice of the inner ring, which has a constantly changing radius. Our now Managing Director, then the Project Engineer on the Big Idea remembers chatting to Angus Kerr the lead architect from BDP at the time “I remember asking Angus about the shape and he casually said ‘it was just a bite out the inside of a doughnut’ - simple then, I thought!”
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Architect’s Big Idea We caught up with Angus Kerr and asked him what was the Big Idea? “What was Big about our design concept for this unique building was our ambition to ‘land a large toroidal structure, enclosing a column-free exhibition space, on an isolated, virgin site, without impacting the landscape - and to do so within a very limited budget. Enter Billy Neilson and his team who, instead of scoffing at our audacity, he grasped the challenge, of engineering such a unique, innovative and elegant structural solution that we were able to deliver! And in time for the Millenuim Opening... Needless to say we went on to work together on several more award winning buildings.”
The building was originally envisaged as being of insitu reinforced concrete construction, but the cost of the formwork for a shape with a constantly changing radius was prohibitive. In order to simplify the construction and reduce costs, we promoted a precast solution. The proposal was to use standard rectangular pc slabs bearing on the internal exposed curved precast ribs. obviously this would give a faceted top surface, but we knew that this could be taken out by the concrete topping. However, the curved shape and reducing radius did not lend itself to being clad with rectangular units. The trick we used was to put the units hard against each other and then cast a series of small insitu trapezoidal filler slabs every four slabs or so, over the width of the roof, to fill the gaps and provide a complete roof slab. We only needed a bottom shutter as the infill concrete was poured against edges of the adjacent pc units, it worked atheistically as the soffit of the exposed roof slab was lined with acoustic mats. This simple change made the frame affordable and building the roof as a predominantly precast element meant the inhospitable weather of the peninsula was less of a threat to the programme.
Present day The project opened early in 2000 and was initially a success; sadly the visitor numbers dropped off quickly and within five years of opening the facility was forced to close. However, a number of parties have looked at the wonderful building and we are hopeful the story is not at an end for the inside of a donut. Maybe we should start a competition - ideas for a rebirth of the big idea!
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Woolgar Hunterstockholm cultural trips
Berlin Munich Barcelona paris
stockholm Berlin
Munich stockholm Barcelona
paris Berlin stockholm 2017 pragueMunich Berlin copenhagen Barcelona
prague stockholm copenhagen 2015 stockholm Berlin Munich madrid stockholm paris madrid Berlin Munich Barcelona london stockholm Berlin 2005 londonprague 2000 2008 Munich Barcelona paris Berlin Munich copenhage Barcelona paris prague 1998/2007 Munich Barcelona madrid 2014 stockholm paris prague Barcelona paris copenhagen london prague Berlin copenhagen paris praguemadrid Munich copenhagen madrid london prague copenhagen Barcelona madrid london 1999 2001 copenhagen madrid paris london madrid london prague london copenhagen madrid london
STOCKHOLM discovering europe's most influencial cities
This year, in the light of our successful and enjoyable trip to Copenhagen, we decided to continue our Scandinavian adventure by selecting Stockholm as the venue for our annual staff study trip. Our plan was to travel to there to sample the general ambiance and architecture of the City and we were not disappointed. These trips have become a vital feature in the calendar at Woolgar Hunter; all staff are invited to spend three days in a European city. The idea is not only to enjoy ourselves and broaden our horizons, but also to create a positive environment for staff to relax with their colleagues, hopefully enabling a greater understanding of each other and what ‘makes us tick’. The industry we are in can create pressure situations as teams strive to meet deadlines and we have found that time spent getting to know one another in a relaxed setting helps create an understanding that makes it easier to give people a little space when things get hectic. These trips came about as we realised that just as we are aware of our need to market externally for new commissions, we needed to be mindful of the need to market internally; to sell the company and our values to staff and by their participation, to continually evolve and improve the work experience. In this regard the trips are important to us, as are forums such as our Engineering Club, which allows space for people to express themselves and enjoy being engineers! Our trip to Stockholm was a huge success. The City has lots of impressive architecture on view, from the modern 34 storey glass-clad Victoria Tower by Wingårdh Arkitektkontor architects; to the historic Gamla Stan (Old Town), one of the largest and best preserved medieval city centres in europe; not to mention the ABBA museum, which one or two of our party did visit! One of the highlights was an exhibition at the Design Museum on the nearby ABC suburb of Vällingby based on the Arbete-Bostad-Centrum, which translates as Work-Dwelling-Centre. This was a 1950’s social experiment to take a piece of rural land adjacent to a major city, critically with good rail links; and create a residential area with commercial and retail facilities to allow people to work where they live; to render it independent and sustainable whilst still benefiting from its neighbour. Vällingby has become an important example used to enhance the image of successful Swedish welfare. Vällingby has deviated somewhat from the original concept, indeed some commentators suggest it has failed in that it has not worked as intended, as most residents now work outwith it. That said, Vällingby remains one of the most popular suburbs of Stockholm, more successful than later suburbs built during the 1970’s where less efforts were spent on cultural and social infrastructure. It is a thriving area bustling with newbuild projects. Interestingly for us, some of the masterplan schemes we are currently looking at are based on a similar theme, albeit extended to a Live-Work-Play model. If you have a spare few days we thoroughly recommend a trip to Stockholm. We flew on direct flights from Edinburgh, Manchester and London. Check out www.visitstockholm.com to help plan your trip - and we won’t tell if you visit the ABBA experience!
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partnership
Woolgar Hunter has just launched a working partnership with the University of Salford as part of the University’s Industrial Collaboration Zones (ICZ) strategy, which should see benefits for both businesses.
Neil Currie, who leads the Woolgar Hunter Manchester office also lectures at the University of Salford and is key to the partnership. Neil explains: ‘I regularly teach Structural Mechanics at Salford which was one of the first courses run when Salford was formed in the late 19th century. Gravity hasn’t changed a great deal in this time… but, what has changed are the advances in materials, design standards and advanced geometrical and structural analysis tools, which allow engineers to be ever more creative and innovative in their solutions whilst still creating safe, buildable, and affordable designs that have a real wow factor. This is where the collaboration is at its strongest between Woolgar Hunter and Salford; creating that collective Wow factor through world class research and passionate, practical, creative engineering design.’ Director, Malcolm Buchanan, is equally excited about the partnership and the possibilities that the partnership holds: ‘At Woolgar Hunter, we have a proud record of working with Universities and professional bodies; from our Head office in Glasgow we have worked closely with the Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow with mentoring schemes, guest lectures and the like, I am delighted that in Manchester we have been able to take this to the next level with this venture.’ Neil has a strong background in lightweight and deployable structures and is already integrating the digital modelling tools used to parametrically model these with the Virtual Reality capabilities that exist at Woolgar Hunter and the University of Salford; as well as the large scale physical testing in the Heavy Structures Lab. ‘One of the advantages of Woolgar Hunter collaborating with the University of Salford is that Salford has a full suite of large, fully accredited laboratories, populated by world leading experts. If you want to be innovative and push the boundaries then a computer model will only get you so far. Sometimes you need to test something physically and to its absolute limit to make sure it’s safe and buildable. This process isn’t feasible for many practicing engineers, but is normal for an academic and part of their daily work.’ Professor Sunil Vadera - Dean of the School of Computing, Science and Engineering says: “The University’s Civil Engineering programmes have a strong tradition of working with industry that dates back to the 1890’s. I’m delighted with the strategic partnership with Woolgar Hunter, especially given their commitment to supporting education and am pleased that, in Neil Currie, we have the ideal person for leading this collaboration, given his knowledge of industry and the expertise we have across the University.”
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What’s on at Woolgar Hunter? LAYOUT knows the best way to keep up to date with what is going on in organisation is to have a coffee with one of the players. This issue we manged to catch up with Pamela Dool, the Marketing Assistant within the Glasgow office and asked ‘What’s going on at Woolgar Hunter?’ Pamela is relatively new to the business joining in early 2017 from a major contracting organisation and she has spent much of the time since then getting up to speed with live projects and new opportunities, so she is well-placed to answer. ‘Wow, where to start?’ she says. ‘I suppose coming in I was surprised at the breadth of work Woolgar Hunter undertake. I, probably like others, was familiar with some of the higher profile projects, such as their office block designs and assumed that is what they do most, but actually it is a lot more than that’. The company works across most of the building sectors, for example we get involved in a lot of University projects, currently we are working with Universities in Stirling, St Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh and for the University of West of Scotland on a whole spread of projects. We also are busy in the general education sector with a good schools portfolio, I am particularly pleased with the recent commission we won for a new high school in Craigmillar, as it was the first school bid I had been involved in since I joined and the client feedback was that the bid and presentation were well received.’ The first of many we hope; is that your role we ask, to prepare bids? Pamela laughs, ‘part of it’. She explains, ‘At Woolgar Hunter it is a ‘’very hands–on can do’’ environment, people are not put in boxes, you are given a brief and latitude to fill it and expand on it, which is why it is so exciting here’. Explain please, we say. However, the coffee is finished and we had better be quick. ’My role here is to help promote the company externally and internally, which is really important to us, let’s not forget who does all the work! I have been involved in organising staff events as much I have corporate entertainment. I work closely with our Graphic Designer, Samuel F. to ensure the company is well represented externally which involves working on everything from our website through to brochures, right down to business cards.’ One last question before you dash off we ask, ‘What’s next for you?’ Without hesitation she says, ‘Helping Neil Currie establish us in Manchester is certainly a major task on my radar, it is an exciting city and I hope to be spending a bit more time there’. With that we exchange thanks and Pamela rushes off. In the next edition we catch up with one of the long serving Building Structures Directors, Paul McKay and ask him ‘What’s going on at Woolgar Hunter?’
Woolgar Hunter LAYOUT magazine is printed using renewable energy and supports the Woodland Trust foundation for trees preservation. LAYOUT magazine is a Woolgar Hunter publication. Concept, Design, Art Direction, uncredited photographs and Illustrations by Samuel F. Copyright © Woolgar Hunter 2017 All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without Woolgar Hunter’s express consent. contact: info@woolgarhunter.com - woolgarhunter.com - +44 (0) 141 332 0471
Engineering Since
OUR AREAS OF EXPERTISE CIVIL ENGINEERING STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING GEO-ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING TELECOM INFRASTRUCTURE ENGINEERING Originally formed in 1971 as Woolgar Hunter & Partners, the practice incorporated into its current form in 1993 and now has established UK offices in Glasgow, Manchester and London. We are an independently owned company, commercially aware and design focused. Our core business is the provision of engineering solutions for civil and structural projects, particularly in the commercial office, residential, retail, industrial, leisure, healthcare and education sectors. Our ethos is to work closely with the client architect extended design team and the contractor in a collaborative manner to deliver the most appropriate economic design solution.
In future editions of Layout we will provide information on our portfolio of work and ‘Spotlight’ trends and topical issues, as well as having guest articles from our friends and colleagues in the industry. If you would like to contribute; or for further information or feedback on any of the projects mentioned in this edition please contact us at layout@woolgarhunter.com
Engineering since ‘71 | layout Woolgar Hunter Magazine | Winter 2017/18 |
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civil + structural + geo-environmental engineering since 1971