Designing Timber issue 10 for online - Flipbook - Page 37
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Model showing the
design of the three
new volumes: the
lower two being
interconnected
both internally and
externally.
A challenging site
“Once we cleared the
makeshift structures, we
realised the ground was not
stable enough to support any
new building,” Hugh explains.
“Parts of it were collapsing
and we discussed whether a
large-scale demolition would
be appropriate, reforming
the terraces in concrete. But
between the engineer, the client
and myself, we didn't want the
昀椀nancial or environmental cost
of pouring huge amounts of
concrete into the hillside.”
"The site was not promising,"
says Charlotte Garven,
Associate at Price & Myers, the
project's structural engineers.
"The slope is very steep indeed
- over the course of the garden
it is a three-storey elevation.
And it was completely unclear
what was holding anything
up and where everything was
going."
The retaining walls would be
integral to the project's success.
"Clearly they needed
strengthening works," Charlotte
says. "The key decision in the
whole project was about not
trying to make them really clean
and precise; and we needed to
minimize any extra load."
Careful, piecemeal
repair work
A lightweight solution
Instead, they opted for
piecemeal repair. Anchor drills
were inserted in each of the
DESIGNING TIMBER
37
steep terraces: they core-drill
deep into the hillside at an
angle, and then drill some
anchors into them which tie the
terrace back into the hillside.
"We did do some limited site
investigation, to con昀椀rm that
the ground anchors would be
viable," Charlotte tells us. "These
are normally used in the side of
railway embankments and big
civil engineering projects: it's
quite unusual for them to be in
domestic project."
There are also areas where
new concrete was patched
over old and, in some areas
that were very bad, some
underpinning. Instead of
painting it or covering it all in
render, it was left as it was:
leaving visible its patchwork
character of old and new, with
features such as a staircase
built into a small retaining wall.
↓
Work in progress:
the LVL structure
going up.
NOV/DEC 2025
Building on top of the repaired
retaining walls still required any
structures to be lightweight - so
INSPIRATION
———— A STEP UP FOR HASTINGS HOUSE ————
