Skyline 120

Countryside Properties have a recent history of purchasing a greenfield site bounded by the A120 and A131 roads in Great Notley, just south of Braintree. The infrastructure works had been completed when Harmonix Construction Ltd started building 16No new office/industrial units as a Design and Build contract valued at £9m over a period of 40 weeks commencing February 2006. The approximate area of the site is 42,000m2.

The initial works prior to foundations involved diverting route of existing field ditches, and then carrying out Lime Stabilisation of the whole site using excavated material previously stored on site by the Client. The understanding and logistics of this process was crucial to successfully preparing the oversight on which all construction activities would be done.

The foundations were mainly bored piles and pilecaps, which supported large main steel columns for clear roof spans of over 50 metres. The 16No Units are contained in 6No separate steel framed buildings that have roof and external walls constructed using Kingspan and Euroclad sheeting materials.

The internal warehouse slabs of each unit are bounded by 2.25m high fair-faced blockwork and the office areas are separated at ground floor with 3.4m high blockwork. At the upper levels, the warehouse and office space is separated by plasterboard firewalls. All the office spaces are finished with traditional materials and include main staircases, toilet areas and lifts for the disabled.

The elevations of the building are punctuated with fairfaced brickwork and colour bands in the wall cladding materials. The main entrances are enhanced with ground to roof curtain walling and ribbon windows located under a bull-nosed roofing detail at the eaves.

The external roads, service yards and car parking consist of tarmac, brush finished concrete and block paving. There are approximately 3500m of new underground drainage and related utility services.

The contract is a daily challenge of fast moving logistics and preparations for following trades all geared up to hand over the project in two phases. The first phase was successfully completed on 31 August 2006 and the second phase is scheduled for completion at the end of November 2006.

The Architect and Consulting Engineer were novated by the Client to Harmonix Construction Ltd.