This unique Project started with a divided community and a run down residential area in Portsmouth. The district was divided, literally, in the ‘cold war era’ of the fifties and sixties, when a main road was cut right through the area, to form an emergency route to and from the Naval Base, for which Portsmouth is rightly famous.
The vision was to re-unite the community with a building of outstanding quality, that would literally be built on a new bridge over the main road.
AKS Ward were appointed as Structural Engineers by the client, The Portsmouth City Council, and then novated to Contractor BAM, who took on the project on a ‘Design and Build’ basis.
We used BIM technology to create the Building Model, which engages a multitude of design and construction techniques, to resolve the structural challenges that this sort of building poses. Working over and around a ‘live’ main road does have its challenges!
The ground breaking, and truly unique superstructure was created using curved Glu-laminated timber frames, oval in form, and just like a massive model aeroplane fuselage.
The multitude of structural forms has created a unique and cost effective structure, that will bring back the ‘heart’ to this once divided community.
