SEPA, Angus Smith House
Eurocentral
DESCRIPTION:
This existing four storey building at Maxim Office Park, Eurocentral has been modified to suit the requirements of its tenant SEPA. The office park buildings were originally constructed on a “brownfield” Enterprise Zone site.
INVOLVEMENT:
Civil and structural design including underground drainage. The structural form of the building is a braced steel frame with precast concrete floors.
The structural alterations include new service riser openings (at each floor level), a new lift shaft and an additional roof plant deck. However, the most significant alteration was to improve the vibration performance of the first floor for use as a microscopy laboratory.
CHALLENGES:
The challenge was to comply with the specified floor performance without compromising the new space plans or the service strategy.
The specified vibration level for the microscopy lab was “VCB” to enable use of X1000 microscopes. To achieve this, Struer carried out a detailed vibration analysis on the suspended floor using finite element modelling. Several structural options were modelled to arrive at the optimum solution which involved a new grillage of heavy steel beams beneath the existing precast floor. The mass of the floor was also increased by applying additional concrete on top of the precast units.
BENEFITS TO CLIENT:
The vibration challenges were overcome allowing the clients sensitive equipment to be used in laboratories on the first floor. The easy option would have been to locate these laboratories at ground floor level. However, this would have resulted in this building being unsuitable due to the required space plan.
There are significant rental discounts associated with the long term lease of this building. It was therefore essential to SEPA that this building became the new headquarters despite the engineering challenges.
