St Pancras Way

Location
Zone 2, London
Client
Unite
Value
£25m approx
Completion
2014
Size
571 Bedrooms
BREEAM Rating
'Very Good'

Six, seven, and nine storey blocks, providing 570 bed spaces

St. Pancras Way student accommodation is made up of six, seven, and nine storey blocks, providing 570 bed spaces in a mixture of six to ten bedroom cluster flats and standalone studios. We were approached by Balfour Beatty to provide the delivery role on this project designed by Cooley Architects.The rooms are accessed from a podium slab that is constructed over a two storey builder’s merchant and yard, whilst the scheme replaces the existing warehouse buildings and yard of the site owner. Planning permission for the scheme had been granted prior to our appointment, but a number of changes and discharging conditions were required to improve the viability of the scheme.

Extensive dialogue with the local authority enabled the construction to proceed on programme with a BREEAM rating of “Very Good” set as a target. The structural grid is dictated by the builder’s merchant, in particular the requirements of their delivery lorries. The student accommodation is supported by a deep concrete transfer slab which includes a service zone beneath, allowing drainage to occur at select locations, which was achieved within the height parameters of the original planning permission whilst still maintaining the required clearance heights. Overall, the scheme combines to create a product of the detailed coordination and integration of architectural, structural and service disciplines to achieve a successful outcome.