New High Rise construction solution at East Village

A revolutionary new system of offsite construction for the UK is being delivered by a team consisting of Mace Group, PCE Ltd and Oranmore Precast Ltd to provide 524 residential apartments in Stratford, East London.

The project, with an overall value of £179 million, known as East Village N06, is part of the regeneration of the former 2012 London Olympics site. The scheme has been developed for client Get Living, with Architects Hawkins Brown and Structural Engineer Walsh. The team, working in collaboration, have developed an innovative off-site engineered Hybrid construction approach known as HRS (High Rise System), which provides clients with the fastest and highest quality multi-storey structures for residential occupation. The system is currently being used to deliver the superstructure, façade, bathrooms and primary M&E Services for the two towers at East Village N06 which are 26 and 30 storeys tall.

The HybriDfMA process and the "kit of parts"

PCE’s role in the collaboration is to provide pre-construction expertise, detail design, planning, off-site and on-site assembly with its directly employed multi-skilled construction teams and using its proven HybriDfMA processes. PCE has established extensive experience and a first-class track record for delivering offsite engineered structures for high-rise buildings using its ‘kit of parts’ philosophy, such as the recently completed Chapel Wharf project in Manchester. The HybriDfMA approach facilitates a broader prefabrication strategy with façade sections being preassembled and fixed offsite onto the external precast concrete floor units to allow the envelope to be constructed concurrently with superstructure without the need for scaffolding or site operatives working at height externally to the structure. In addition, prefabricated M&E modules, bathroom pods and utility cupboards are all integrated into the erection of the two towers as they progress.

Images show the offsite engineered unit being lowered into place and the M&E built in underneath. This HRS system uses offsite engineered precast concrete components with insitu concrete to form the cores providing stability to the towers. A key element of the Hybrid system is the reinforced precast concrete floor units, detail designed by PCE’s in-house design team, and manufactured by Oranmore. These innovative pre-finished two way spanning precast concrete units are propped in the temporary condition, and the joints between the units are formed with reinforced insitu structural concrete to achieve bi-axial load distribution in the finished structure. Precast concrete columns provide vertical load transfer whilst precast concrete stairs and landings are installed progressively within the stability cores to provide safe access and egress during construction works. In total 3,995 offsite factory engineered units will be delivered to the East Village N06 project for PCE to assemble over a 12-month construction period.

PCE’s Managing Director Nickie Brown has stated:

“Having successfully delivered the HRS system, excluding the façade, for a structure on the Battersea Power Station regeneration project, East Village N06 represents a significant step forward for the system with its integrated envelope. This along with the prefabricated M&E systems and bathrooms is what the team set out to achieve from the outset. We look forward to successfully delivering the project and adopting the system on future developments.”