CARE HOMES & SHELTERED HOUSING PROJECT REPORT
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after LGS at 11 weeks, and only required 175 mm party walls. Symmetrys, with assistance from the quantity surveyors PMP, estimated that the additional cost of fireproofing and sound- proofing an LGS frame in this case would have been around £200,000, which Halaria describes as “quite phenomenal.” In addition, there was the weight issue: “Both LGS and CLT frame are very light, but with LGS you are using concrete floors so it’s a heavier frame overall.” And due to the limitations on spans, “there would be a lot of hot rolled steel to get it to work, essen- tially it would become a standard steel frame infilled with LGS.”
Cormac Farrelly is complimentary about Symmetrys’ analytical approach: “The very helpful thing they did was to look at that cost/benefit matrix, which allowed the decision to be made. If you look at the bigger picture, it’s actually cost-neutral.”
Speed & efficiency
Symmetrys identified a further reason why steel frame, despite its familiarity for contractors and ability to provide large spans, wasn’t the ideal solution. The need to bring in a crane would have involved a “high level of site activity in a sensitive local
ADF JUNE 2017
environment.” On other hand, as witnessed recently by Halaria on a CLT housing project in London’s Elephant & Castle by Eurban (Trafalgar Place), fast progress can be made using just a few staff on site. “There was a team of five rapidly putting up a big building, as it’s so efficient.” Farrelly comments: “We wanted CLT for the energy advantages of the material, but also its speed – we could get this thing water-tight really quickly.” He does offer a note of caution however, saying “We’ve used CLT in the past where it has been brought in too late in the day, and there has been a lot of steel thrown in to make the spans work.”
Halaria summarises why CLT finally won out over a twin-wall precast option – weight of precast being one factor, but the deal-breaker being the roof: “The thing with precast is while it would go up as quickly as CLT, the precast units couldn’t span to the ridge to form the roof, so you’d have to bring in steelwork which is another trade on site.” In addition it would have a “significant impact on foundation costs,” costing around an extra £100,000 for foundations and screed according to Symmetrys’ analysis. Even a steel frame with precast floors would have cost an
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ROOMS WITH A VIEW
As well as providing more space than normal and great views, apartments also have a sense of enclosure and are shaded by the balconies above
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