The Nest, Derby Road
NG1- Sectors
- Student Accommodation, Residential, Mixed Use
- Status
- Completed
- Services
- Civil, Structural
- Client
- Tang Developments
- Project Value
- £5 million
The Nest is a £5m student residential scheme in centre of Nottingham
The scheme was completed in Spring 2020 and comprised 60 luxury studio apartments as well as a ground floor commercial space. The previous dilapidated building was demolished and replaced by a contemporary structure. The Nest was marketed at international students and aimed to be a modern, aesthetically-pleasing addition to Nottingham’s student residential offering.
Dice worked closely with the design team to overcome numerous challenges encountered during early design stages of the project’s delivery. This included poor ground conditions, which impacted upon the piled foundation solution and contiguous piled retaining structure, which was installed to support the public highway to Wollaton Street at the rear of the site.
The client’s request to incorporate both a masonry and timber frame superstructure also created numerous design complications associated with disproportionate collapse, due to the development being five-storeys in height and therefore falling into a higher risk category (2b).
Derby Road Structural Detailing
Design Challenges
The 5-storeys of masonry were constructed off a grid of steel beams at first floor level. The beams were positioned generally on the load bearing, blockwork wall lines. Proposals also showed 4 steel columns within the retail space which created long spans for the steel beams relative to the high load coming down each of the blockwork which were rationalised with additional columns. An in-situ concrete deck at first floor level was introduced in order to restrain the floor beams.
Given the high beam loads, a timber deck was found to not be sufficient to restrain the beams and therefore inefficient over the spans required. The introduction of a concrete deck not only restrained the beams, it also enabled a composite action which reduced the steel tonnage by 20%. The concrete deck also provided a robust working platform to commence the building of the load bearing walls above, each centred on the beam lines.
"I am so pleased I chose Dice to work on this project. The entire team not only supported the project, but overcame the site’s challenges and worked closely with our team to get us to where we are now."
Kane Tang, Director at Tang Developments Ltd
Related projects
Queens RoadNottingham, NG1
Related projects