Vector buildings is an industrial relic of Bristol’s past Tobacco trade and had been converted in part to office accommodation. The building is a red brick solid walled industrial building with a steel
frame.
project was clearly constrained by the historic fabric of the walls, planned by another designer to provide a high density of residential units to make the development viable. The design involved the
use of internal atrium’s and was also constrained by the internal structural framework. Our task was to navigate the existing structure, design the extended roof whilst providing building
regulation compliance to the approved layouts. This was also balanced against utilising as much of the historical character of the building in the designs as possible such as the exposed brickwork to give a loft style appearance.
Western Building Consultants were appointed as Architectural Designer for the construction stages, CDM principal designer and party wall consultant to the developer.
Some of the more interesting elements were tackled by creating glass fireproof lobbies within the upper levels of the mezzanine to protect those levels and bring them in line with performance standards.
Western Building had to develop and calculate a solution for natural ventilation and smoke ventilation, where we were able to bring ventilation in at a low level and use actuated windows
within the fire corridor and atrium roof windows to ensure adequate natural ventilation was achieved. This included prescribing a fire panel and control device to each flat linked to the
communal system.
The alterations to create these performance standards also had to be managed against the competing structural engineering requirements for the building and the existing historical features,
to ultimately develop a unique and tailored solution to this building.