BWB Consulting - Integrated Engineering and Environmental Consultants

Services:

• Environmental
• Geotechnical
• Drainage Engineering
• Civil Engineering
• Structural Engineering

Sectors:

• Residential

Heritage Court is one of the largest residential developments commissioned in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter and heralded the introduction of city living to this historic location.

This mixed-use development comprises 140 luxury apartments, with a number duplex apartments located on the upper storeys of the six storey blocks. Shops and offices are incorporated at ground level to link the development to the existing street scene. 140 parking spaces are provided in an underground car park.

The site is surrounded on three sides by existing buildings requiring the resolution of a number of complex boundary wall issues during the design of the basement car park.

Due to the unusual shape of the building footprint, and the limited number of locations available to provide lateral bracing elements, the entire structure, which is over 100m in length, was designed not to require movement joints. This required a number of complex 3-dimensional finite element models to analyse the thermal load cases during the temporary and permanent stages of construction. The choice of a reinforced concrete flat slab frame provided an economic solution, and enhanced both the thermal and acoustic properties of the building.