The Bridge (Union Street)

Project Overview

The Bridge, also known as ‘50 to 54 Union Street’ is a large 331 bed student accommodation development comprising of 91 studios and 38 cluster apartments. The development is spread over 8 storeys and is completed to a high specification. The site was complex in that the building is founded on a raft over an area of historic coal mine workings to allow the building to be economically constructed and removing the long lead time of piling works impacting upon the delivery of the project. This shallow foundation resulted in the foundation coming within the zone of influence of the Network Rail East Coast mainline’s retaining structures.

Our raft design incorporated a “soft joint” to lower the zone of influence of the foundation reaction so as to not impose any additional lateral load on the historic retaining structure. As well as our full consultancy service we provided all temporary works designs for the contractor as the Contractors Responsible Engineer under the terms of Network Rail asset protection agreements. This included an assessment of all crane lifts, phase by phase stability of the steelwork structure and an antilever support for the mast climber where bases could not be placed without overloading Network Rail assets.