60 PROJECT REPORT: RETAIL DEVELOPMENTS
MEETING IN THE MIDDLE
The ‘concertina’ glazing evolved as a budget-conscious alternative to curved glass, but the designers also felt it echoed how the buildings were broken up by arches All photos © Hufton+Crow
wouldn’t be any columns underneath.” She adds however: “The structural gymnastics of achieving that were incredibly complicated.” The coal drops themselves couldn’t support the new level, so they had to find a way to “stitch it through the existing structure onto new foundations.” In total, 52 pairs of steel columns – which sit on either side of the walls separating each bay – have been “threaded” through the existing buildings. This in itself presented a headache for the studio, as Finlay explains. They couldn’t get a standard piling rig in the space so they used mini piles for each pair of columns. “You just couldn’t do things in a conventional way.” The new roof “ribbons” themselves are made up of 20 steel sections bolted onto trusses at either end and tied back to the columns. The structure is also shored up by concrete walls and cores, and the new floor is hung via a series of high tension cables tucked in the corners created by the concertina-style glass. Although this steel and glass contrasts with the historic buildings below, it was part of Argent’s brief that the additional level should be “as transparent as possible,” says Finlay. “There was this feeling that
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you could look through, up into it and out of it, and it all felt connected together,” adds Green.
Specifying the glass wasn’t a simple task. There was a fixed budget that didn’t allow for curved glass, which is how the concertina shape evolved. The designers see this design as a contemporary way of echoing how the buildings below are broken up into sections by the arches. As well as the overall design, the thermal properties, and ensuring the views in and out worked for retail clients, also had to be considered. “There was a lot of testing on samples of glass to make sure it would work,” Finlay says. Originally, a third viaduct ran through the middle of the coal drops, and the design of the cobbles follow its footprint, by way of recognition of this vanished edifice. Despite the removal of this substantial structure, the site was still incredibly tight. “When the four sections of steel came, they were lying in the yard taking up all of the operational space,” explains Finlay. Many of the utilities for the surrounding area also run through the site: “Underneath the yard every inch is taken up,” she says. “We were coordinating facilities at the same time as coming up with our very early concept design,” adds Green.
ADF FEBRUARY 2019
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