A major redevelopment of the Hammerson House care home on The Bishops Avenue, London. The proposed scheme is within a conservation area and includes the demolition of the existing care home on the site and construction of a new four-storey building.
The care home provides 112 resident bedrooms across the four floors, along with shared communal areas, care and therapy services, staff facilities and external landscaped gardens. Feature stonework and glazing around the entrance area, dining and conservatory spaces provide visually interesting façades.
The proposed building is three storeys with a single-storey basement level beneath the full footprint of the superstructure to suit the sloped topology of the site. Due to ground conditions, the single-storey basement uses a secant piled wall around its perimeter with bearing piles beneath column positions and a suspended basement slab spans between them.
The superstructure is designed as a concrete frame stabilised with reinforced concrete shear walls around the stairwells, and reinforced concrete flat slabs supported by a regular column grid. At ground floor level a large column-free communal space, provides flexibility and an area to host events, using a pair of downstand concrete transfer beams to support the columns above.
Due to the ground conditions and a high-water table, the uplift on the basement is a significant challenge. Piled foundations were the most suitable foundation system based upon the vertical loads and necessity for tension piles to counteract the uplift from the hydrostatic pressure of the ground water.
Completed 2021.
