Student Accommodation, Portswood Road

BWB are proud to be involved in this purpose-built state-of-the art student accommodation in Southampton.

The development will create a metropolitan and homely environment for the students which perfectly fits with the existing surroundings, regenerating a prominent site.

The scheme located close to the University of Southampton campus, comprises 525 bedrooms spread across 80 individual flats and 103 separate studio rooms. In addition to the accommodation, the site will also include the associated communal facilities including a gym, a cinema, quiet spaces, cycle storage areas, parking spaces and two retail units.

BWB were commissioned to provide Site Investigation works together with the Civil and Structural engineering design services.

The project is set to be completed by the summer of 2017, with the first students moving into the new accommodation in September 2017.

Key Challenges

BWB had to design a tiered site investigation approach for due diligence, planning and design purposes due to restrictions associated with the site's active use. Due to the intuitive design of the high rise structures, deep piling was required to support the large structural loading's which required deep ground investigation in order to obtain the required information for piling design.

Numerous transfer structures have been required to create the large open plans in the office, plant room and amenity areas.

The site was subject to sloping which resulted into many retaining structures being required.