52-54 NEW CROSS
ROAD

Can we create cost effective, high quality social housing towers over safeguarded routes?

Location:        New Cross
Status:            Planning 

Client:             Southern Grove
Architect:    Dowen Farmer Architects
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Structural Design Brief

Lean concrete frame structure.

Bakerloo extension safeguarding zone over full site.

Coordinated massing steps and ground floor amenity with structural grid.

Delivering structural solutions for social housing needs to balance a limited budget with a robust design solution and takes considered design coordination. Working through the coordination of vertical elements so that they enable rather than limit the variations in space plan, unit mix, building massing and the ground floor amenity is essential in developing a robust concept. Key areas such as balcony details, terrace build ups and utilities distribution routes need to be established early to ensure efficient floor-to-floor heights are deliverable.

The site is located 19m above a safeguarding zone for the proposed Bakerloo line extension, which covers the full footprint of the development. Once exclusion zones and tolerances are factored in a traditional piled solution would not be deliverable within these constraints. A Controlled Modulus Column (CMC) solution was developed to provide sufficient ground improvement to support the proposed building, without entering the exclusion zones.