Works are almost complete at Queen’s Court on Gary Monaghan’s five storey, 20 flat housing development for Download Housing Association, engineered by McCarey Simmonds. The project was architecturally designed and project managed by construction management specialists, Focus Consulting of Brighton.

Works progress on site with the erection of timber frame panels at Queen’s Court in East Grinstead by Monaghan Construction for Downland Housing Association.

McCarey Simmonds are responsible for the superstructure and foundation design with Focus Consulting responsible for the architecture and project management of this five storey timber framed residential block. The structure is built into a sloping site requiring the instalation of bored piled and king post cantilever retaining wall.

The open glazed structure is formed in steelwork with precast concrete floors. The basement retaining wall structure, including indoor pool, are formed in Caltite waterproof concrete. An interesting feature is the glazed roof top bedroom pod that cantilevers dramatically over the front and rear of the building. The pod gives access to a roof top garden along with spectacular views across Brighton.

To view a Microsoft Photosynth and

This November, Cross Street South, the Midland’s first Eco community in Wolverhampton, won the Sustainable Housing Award for ‘Sustainable larger social housing project of the year’ at a ceremony hosted by impressionist, comedian, and committed environmental campaigner, Alistair McGowan, at London’s Hilton Hotel.

This ground breaking development, the superstructure structural engineering which was designed by McCarey Simmonds, provides 27 eco-friendly flats and 3 houses that uses up to 50% less energy than standard homes, only needing 2 kilowatts of heat as opposed to the usual 8 to 10. It also uses a range of low maintenance materials such as cedar cladding and recycled wood in its kitchen units. The grass roof provides good insulation and keeps the homes cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Other eco friendly aspects include a community recycled wood chip boiler, which provides all of the heating and hot water for the homes, low energy lighting, composting, recycling bins, water butts and high performance softwood and double-glazing.

Previous….

14th October 2006
We start work this month on the superstructure design and detailing of Cross Street South, Wolverhampton on behalf of Integer and, our client, OFP Timber Engineering.

The scheme consists of 30 dwellings, combining two-bedroom apartments and terrace housing and incorporates a communal landscaped environmental park, allotments, recycling facilities and environmental pavilion.

All dwellings will comply with “Lifetimes Homes” objectives and meet “Eco-homes – Excellent” standards. The project will incorporate modern methods of construction and will aim to provide future flexibility, reduced energy and water consumption and use sustainable materials. Sedum alpine roofs will also be used on the scheme.

Works near completion to create three storeys of high quality residential roof top apartments on top of an existing five storey commercial and office building at Farringdon Point in central London.

The new construction is a combination of Structural Insulated Panels and commercial timber frame, all specially designed and detailed by McCarey Simmonds to minimise the increase in load on the existing building structure. The structure is fabricated and erected by specialists, Build it Green, for design and build contractors Vector Build Limited all working to a demanding 50 week program for Farringdon Point Limited.

Update 21 Oct 2007: Conversion of the existing school building is nearing completion with the striking Edwardian building having been restored with each apartment preserving the external character while taking account of the requirements of Gallions Housing Association for contemporary living.

McCarey Simmonds have started work, this week, on the redevelopment of Bexley College, formally St Joseph’s Convent, Abbey Wood, London. The large late Victorian early Edwardian building will be converted into 30 residential flats (£3.5 million) with a further 40 residential flats (£3.5 million) constructed as new build within the grounds.

Our brief is to initially carry out a full NHBC compliant condition survey of the existing campus buildings then to provide full superstructure and substructure design and construction details for the conversion and new build. In addition, we will be providing access road design and sub surface foul and storm drainage design.

This project forms part of a long term partnering agreement with our client.

It’s not just modern forms of construction, we work with some of the finest oak framed carpenters within the Sussex region giving technical design advise on projects ranging from new build statement homes to the sensitive reconstruction of period houses and barns.

Our current timber projects include the conversion of a 17th century oak framed hay barn to a magnificent house on a rolling downland hill overlooking the Blue Bell Railway Line, design and construction of a 70 flat modern timber framed residential development within south London to giving insurers technical repair advice on the reconstruction of a fire damaged timber framed house in Woodham, Surrey.

Future timber projects will hopefully include large scale developments in eastern Europe and work on the Olympic Village in London.

If it is timber engineering advice you require, look no further.

To assist our many housing developer and timber frame supplier clients, we have recently achieved National House Building Council ‘Listed Timber Frame Certifiers’ status. This now allows our clients to employ a single consultancy which can both design and certify timber and structural insulated panel structures.

A recent National Audit Office report commissioned by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister looked at how modern methods of construction can be used to build good quality homes more quickly and efficiently.

The report concluded that, when using modern methods of construction, such as timber frame, rather than more established techniques, it should be possible to:

• build up to four times as many homes with the same on-site labour.
• on-site construction time can be reduced by over a half.
• building performance can be at least as good.

With our extensive expertise in both Timber Framed design and Structural Insulated Panel design, McCarey Simmonds are ideally placed to benefit from the rise in timber frame construction.

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