Project Description:

The client wished to extend the existing printing works to provide accommodation for another new state of the art printing press. This was to cause difficulties as the new press was to be considerably larger than the existing and there was very little land on the site on which to develop.

The original building had been designed with sufficient land adjacent to the existing press hall so that a simple additional hall could be built in the future. However, the size and scale of the proposed new press was to stretch planning constraints and the site to its limits.

The site, although part of an existing technology park, has significant restrictions with regard to industrial noise control, being adjacent to a site for mobile homes. As a consequence acoustic considerations were paramount to ensure that the structure and fabric of the proposed new hall was designed to adequately attenuate the noise produced by the new and existing equipment.

The Press Hall was, therefore, built in heavy masonry construction, comprising traditional cavity walls with patterned facing brickwork to match exactly that of the existing building. The additional height of the new press was accommodated within a cranked steel roof, sympathetically concealed behind a triangular brickwork parapet.

The press was to be mounted on a mass concrete base and a reinforced concrete table over 40 metres long, both insulated from the structure of the main building in order to eliminate the passage of structural borne sound.

General building services within the new hall were supplemented with mechanical ventilation and comfort cooling within the press control suite. In order to provide power for the new press, an existing electrical sub station on the site had to be decommissioned and relocated with an upgraded transformer. The building and the services had to be carefully co-ordinated with the assembly of the press itself and within other specialist systems, including conveyors and the structure of the soundproof control suite.

In addition to the construction of the press hall, the publishing hall was also extended into the existing loading bay area, a new covered loading bay being formed by roofing over an adjacent area of the service yard.

The works were to be completed within a period of nine months, which included two months for the installation of the press.

Project Sectors:

Industrial
Factories
Warehouses
Offices
Newspaper Buildings and Press Hall

Contact:

The Managing Director
The Print Works
Staverton Technology Park
Gloucester Road
Cheltenham
Gloucestershire GL51 6TQ

Project Successes:

Cost in use
Ease of Maintenance
Energy Conservation
Functionality
Meeting budget constraints
Value for money

Office Involvement:

Andrew Reed
Timothy Turner

Services Offered:

Acoustics
Architecture
Contract advice
Planning approvals
Planning supervisor