Arup will lead an expert design team to help deliver the new £31 million pedestrian and cycle crossing on the River Wear in Sunderland. The global engineering and consulting firm will work closely with contractor VolkerStevin and has assembled an experienced team including specialist bridge architects Knight Architects and local
A landmark regeneration project on the outskirts of Llanelli has been given the go ahead by the UK and Welsh Governments, securing £40m in City Deal funding. Arup has worked closely with Carmarthenshire County Council and project stakeholders to develop a brief, explore design options and submit RIBA Stage 3
The Grade II* listed Grand Hotel in Birmingham has been restored to its former glory, following extensive renovation work by Arup, the leading architecture and engineering firm. Nearly two decades on from when it last closed its doors to customers, Arup’s award-winning work has transformed the city centre landmark. Originally
An ever-expanding population and declining planetary health could lead to gigantic air domes combatting the leading cause of death, air pollution, and the total destabilisation of global weather patterns. This is according to one of the four future scenarios for our planet in a new report released today by global
The joint venture between Arup and Costain has secured a £2 million Yorkshire Water contract under a Health & Safety Assurance consultancy framework. Together they will deliver the work across a four-year contract as part of the utility’s AMP7 capital investment programme, which aims to facilitate the delivery of resilient assets
Sellafield Ltd has awarded the Morgan Sindall and Arup joint venture an extension of the Infrastructure Strategic Alliance (ISA) contract for a further five years. The ISA is one of a number of long-term strategic supply agreements aligned to the Sellafield Ltd acquisition strategy. Awarded to Morgan Sindall and Arup
A new study by Arup, released this week at the 23rd World Energy Congress, shows that cities have more power to secure their own cleaner energy supply than they realise. Growing cities, which already account for more than 50% of global energy consumption, can no longer afford to rely on
BDC 319 : Aug 2024
Arup will lead an expert design team to help deliver the new £31 million pedestrian and cycle crossing on the River Wear in Sunderland. The global engineering and consulting firm will work closely with contractor VolkerStevin and has assembled an experienced team including specialist bridge architects Knight Architects and local landscape architects Colour. The team will bring its technical expertise and local knowledge to deliver a bridge in line with the overall vision for the project, as outlined by Sunderland City Council. VolkerStevin was named as the partner to deliver the bridge in September 2021. This project is a central part of Sunderland’s new Riverside Park and will provide connectivity between Sheepfolds and the city centre as part of the Riverside Sunderland Masterplan, led by the council and backed with £100 million by Legal & General. Arup will use digital 3D models to develop the design and consider its integration with surrounding areas, as well as ensuring sustainability is at the heart of the development. This will include minimising the bridge’s carbon impact, reducing any impacts on the biodiversity of the river environment both during construction and throughout the lifetime of the bridge. The bridge, expected to open in 2024, will incorporate the completion of the Keel Line connection between Keel Square and the Stadium of Light to encourage walking and cycling in and around Riverside Sunderland by carefully considering people’s experience of the bridge. The new footbridge will use a simple aesthetic to enhance the riverside development, complementing other crossings. It will include creative lighting, illuminating the green spaces which flank the riverside below. Rachel Hurdman, Project Manager at Arup, said:”This is an important project for the local area and an exemplar of sustainable, people-focussed design. Our design and engineering experts will be leading the design process with cutting-edge design and engineering to provide a new strategic link for the people of Sunderland.”
A landmark regeneration project on the outskirts of Llanelli has been given the go ahead by the UK and Welsh Governments, securing £40m in City Deal funding. Arup has worked closely with Carmarthenshire County Council and project stakeholders to develop a brief, explore design options and submit RIBA Stage 3 proposals for the Pentre Awel scheme which is due to start on site later this year. This innovative provision of social infrastructure will transform the post-industrial site to create a vibrant new amenity for the whole community. The Delta Lakes site, once home to a range of industries that made Llanelli prosperous in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, has remained undeveloped since the late twentieth century. Historic uses have left a legacy of contamination which this development will address as part of a site-wide regeneration to create a generous public landscape themed around health and wellbeing, while setting the context for future phases of development. The initial phase will bring together higher education and employment in life sciences businesses, community healthcare and modern leisure facilities – within a single building. The ‘one building’ solution brings together diverse user groups with the aim of improving outcomes for the Llanelli community, from health and wellbeing throughout the five life stages set out in the Welsh Government’s Wellbeing of Future Generations Act and addressing the UK Government’s post-covid ‘levelling up’ agenda in a community challenged by high levels of unemployment and chronic health conditions. This pioneering development is arranged as a series of five two and three-storey buildings connected by an enclosed street, its scale paying homage to the proportions of Llanelli’s historic core. A major driver of the design was a desire to maximise daylight throughout. Meanwhile, the landscaping seeks to bring the outside in, encouraging people to explore and remain active. It permeates into the courtyard entrances that erode the building form, and key spaces within enjoy spectacular views across the adjacent lake and west to the Loughor Estuary. A simple and robust palette of external materials have been selected to create a timeless, welcoming and low-maintenance building which responds to its context. The elevations of brick and profiled metal reflect the site’s industrial heritage, whilst the fractured massing avoids the scale of the building overwhelming its context. Roofs are profiled metal and green/brown roofs, with photovoltaic panels generating electricity which contributes to the renewable energy strategy. Sustainability is a central consideration, with a requirement to achieve BREEAM Excellent as a minimum, reducing embodied and operational energy where feasible within the budget constraints, thus minimising whole life impact. Jo Wright, Architecture Practice Leader, Arup, said: “Throughout the design process, we have adopted a holistic approach to sustainability, striving to maximise social, environmental and economic benefits in the long term. This scheme is a perfect exemplar for the post-Covid levelling up agenda, placing health and wellbeing at the heart of regeneration in one of the UK’s most deprived communities.” Carmarthenshire County Council Leader Cllr Emlyn Dole said: “Pentre Awel will be the first development of its scope and size in Wales delivering business, research, health, education and state-of-the-art leisure facilities all on one location along the Llanelli coastline. “It will generate a wide range of employment and training opportunities for local people while considerably boosting the local economy to further accelerate our economic recovery from Covid-19. “The designs showcase the council’s ambition to create a development that is landscape-led, connected to local communities and amenities and is sustainable and we are very excited that we will soon be in a position to start delivering this truly original development.” Pentre Awel is being delivered by Carmarthenshire County Council in partnership with Hywel Dda University Health Board, Universities and Colleges including Coleg Sir Gar, the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Swansea University and Cardiff University. The development will also include assisted living accommodation, along with a nursing home, a hotel, and elements of both open market and social and affordable housing.
The Grade II* listed Grand Hotel in Birmingham has been restored to its former glory, following extensive renovation work by Arup, the leading architecture and engineering firm. Nearly two decades on from when it last closed its doors to customers, Arup’s award-winning work has transformed the city centre landmark. Originally built in the 1870s and one of the best surviving examples of Victorian architecture in Birmingham, the Grand Hotel had fallen into a state of disrepair since ceasing trading in 2002. Listed in 2004, Arup was brought on board by Hortons’ Estate to explore cost-effective options to stabilise and restore its façade stonework, which was hidden behind years of inappropriate repairs. Solving hidden problems and preserving historic fabric A thick build-up of cement, paint, bitumen and resin, had trapped moisture within the stone behind and masked its decay. In places, the masonry was unstable and sometimes soft enough to tear by hand. Arup also uncovered issues with the original design, which included incorrect weathering details that were absorbing rainwater rather than pushing it away. The stone itself also appeared to be of poor quality, unsuitable for areas of heavy exposure. Stripping away the coatings and stabilising the damaged stonework would significantly eat into the finished surface of the façade, altering its carved details and creating a misshapen appearance. To mitigate this effect and reinstate the original grandeur of the façade, Arup developed a set of conservation principles to carve into the surviving stone, effectively re-setting the entire building envelope backwards. Recreating the finish and sourcing locally Point-cloud surveys of the façade were taken before and after the coatings were stripped, allowing the team to specify where and how each individual flat area should be finished. This information was translated into a set of small elevations for use by the masons on site, showing how far each block should be dressed back to contribute correctly to the overall arrangement. Decorative details were also re-carved in-situ, as far as possible, to recreate the entire ornate finish of the building, while in turn keeping the quantity of new stone to an absolute minimum. The project supported businesses and craftspeople from the region, sourcing both labour and materials locally. This included stonemasons from Midland Conservation Ltd, who carried out repairs using traditional tools and techniques, working by hand to conserve almost every piece of decorative as well as most of the plain ashlar stone. This work led to Historic England describing the scale and traditional nature of the stonemasonry repairs at the Grand Hotel as unique, at the time in 2015, for a non-ecclesiastical building. Arup’s structural engineers were subsequently involved in redesigning the internal structure. This included the construction of a new full height central circulation area and a steel structure for penthouse suites. Thomas Pearson, Associate at Arup, said: “In our conservation architecture practice, we place particular importance on the original materials of a listed building. In this case the decay was so widespread that repairing the Grand Hotel’s façade demanded technical innovation, design creativity and painstaking craftsmanship. “I am proud to have led Arup’s team, providing conservation architecture, stone consultancy and façade engineering services to save the building from demolition. It is hugely satisfying to see one of Birmingham’s most loved buildings open again as a landmark hotel for the city.”
An ever-expanding population and declining planetary health could lead to gigantic air domes combatting the leading cause of death, air pollution, and the total destabilisation of global weather patterns. This is according to one of the four future scenarios for our planet in a new report released today by global engineering consultancy, Arup. With the global population expected to increase by 2 billion people, from 7.7 billion to 9.7 billion, by 2050, ‘2050 Scenarios: Four Plausible Futures’ depict how we could live in 2050, based on the intersection between our planet’s health and societal conditions. The four divergent futures in the report – Humans Inc., Extinction Express, Greentocracy and Post Anthropocene – range from the collapse of our society and natural system, to the two living in sustainable harmony. In ‘Humans Inc.’, global temperatures have exceeded the 2°C target and coordinated action on a global level continues to struggle. Here, increased frequency and severity of weather events continue to have a detrimental effect on our cities and ecosystems, yet technological advances have reduced poverty, improved education and ensured jobs are abundant. ‘Extinction Express’ details the dramatic decline in planetary health and human society, where global temperatures far exceed 2°C and the long-term inaction of society and continued exploitation of planetary resources have resulted in colonies on the moon and underwater. ‘Greentocracy’ shows an improvement in planetary health but this has been enabled by severe restrictions on human society: poor living conditions, conflict and authoritarian regimes prevail. The global mean temperature rise remains below 1.5°C due to climate action and fostering biodiversity being at the top of the agenda. ‘Post Anthropocene’, in this future, human society and planetary health exist in a harmonious relationship. Large-scale climate change consequences, such as 15% of artic sea ice melting, catalyse global cooperation on climate change action, helping the global mean temperature rise to remain below 1.5°C. Society only consumes resources at the rate at which can be replenished, and everyone has a carbon quota. Josef Hargrave, Global Foresight Manager at Arup, said: “The four scenarios that we have projected are each extreme yet plausible. To some they may seem alarmist, to others not extreme enough. In every case they help us gain a deeper understanding of both the opportunities and threats we are facing over the coming decades and possible pathways towards these futures. We have the power to shape our future, but which future do we actually want?” The report is intended to inform decisions on the design and planning of our built environment. Each scenario has been developed using detailed research of trends and projections from think thanks, governments, statistical data, NGOs and research institutions, and shows how progress towards achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) can drive change for our planet and outlook for humanity. Jo da Silva, Global Sustainable Development Leader at Arup, commented: “Sustainable development is fundamentally about creating a balance between the needs of a growing world population and the finite resources and health of our planet – our life support system. As engineers, scientists and planners, we all have a responsibility to make sure that the decisions made today have a positive impact on our future. We must act now in our shared quest for a safe, resilient and resource-efficient world for all.”
The joint venture between Arup and Costain has secured a £2 million Yorkshire Water contract under a Health & Safety Assurance consultancy framework. Together they will deliver the work across a four-year contract as part of the utility’s AMP7 capital investment programme, which aims to facilitate the delivery of resilient assets and drive exceptional service for the company’s customers. “UK water companies are facing significant challenges in AMP7 around affordability, operational resilience and increasing expectations from regulators, stakeholders and customers. The Costain-Arup partnership is committed to supporting Yorkshire Water and its supply chain in providing exceptional service for its customers by assuring the delivery of safe, reliable and resilient assets,” said Mark Fletcher, Arup Global Water Business Leader. Under the contract, the JV will provide expertise in CDM (Construction, Design and Management) regulation compliance, design phase process and construction site safety to help Yorkshire Water address key affordability challenges in the efficient delivery of its AMP7 investment programme. “Following a twelve-month selection process, we are delighted to be working with Costain and Arup on our new Assurance Framework. The framework supports our enhanced assurance approach which is aimed at providing specialist, targeted assurance to meet the challenging needs of AMP7,” said Paul Robins, Continuous Improvement Manager at Yorkshire Water. “Costain and Arup bring a range of specialists to support our Health and Safety assurance needs, promoting collaborative working, innovation and continual improvement within the Yorkshire Water supply chain,” Paul concluded.
Sellafield Ltd has awarded the Morgan Sindall and Arup joint venture an extension of the Infrastructure Strategic Alliance (ISA) contract for a further five years. The ISA is one of a number of long-term strategic supply agreements aligned to the Sellafield Ltd acquisition strategy. Awarded to Morgan Sindall and Arup in a joint venture in 2012, the ISA is responsible for a £1.1 billion contract to provide essential infrastructure assets to the Sellafield site. This is the first renewal of a contract that has the potential for further extension periods, subject to performance, up to a total life of 15 years. The ISA contract provides Sellafield Ltd with the capability and capacity to deliver a growing programme of infrastructure projects required for an aging asset portfolio. The contract is primarily aimed at utility assets, such as the on-site provision and distribution of steam, electricity, water supply and compressed air, bulk chemical storage and distribution, civil infrastructure, the site’s drainage networks and other facilities including roads, bridges, car parks and general buildings (such as canteens and laundry facilities). It also includes some non-utility assets such as analytical services facilities, transport systems, flask maintenance plant and emergency management systems. Alongside the delivery of key infrastructure projects to the Sellafield site, the ISA contract has placed a great emphasis on socio-economic contributions across Cumbria. Throughout the duration of the contract, the ISA delivery partners have invested in local employment, skills development and apprenticeships. Currently over 12% of the ISA workforce are graduates, apprentices or trainees. Through the Creating Careers in Cumbria programme, the ISA delivery partners have given twenty previously unemployed local people the chance to gain full time employment. The programme focuses on providing work experience and employment skills for long-term unemployed local people. The scheme has an 80.5% success rate, which reflects the ISA delivery partners’ commitment to the people of Cumbria. Simon Smith, Morgan Sindall Arup joint venture board member said: “The extension of the ISA contract builds on our commitment to deliver the most complex and challenging infrastructure projects for our customer. The alliance is not only a key vehicle for delivering infrastructure improvements on site at Sellafield; it is also driving wider socio-economic benefit across Cumbria. Through a combination of our leading construction and innovative design knowledge, we will continue to develop a strong programme of work to tackle the unique challenges at Sellafield.”
A new study by Arup, released this week at the 23rd World Energy Congress, shows that cities have more power to secure their own cleaner energy supply than they realise. Growing cities, which already account for more than 50% of global energy consumption, can no longer afford to rely on a centralised energy supply and will need to take more control to meet the rising demand. The Arup “Innovating Urban Energy” perspective paper provides insight for the World Energy Council Scenarios Report and shows that new technologies, innovative financing mechanisms and political changes are opening up opportunities for cities to secure their own energy. Technology drivers, such as advanced power electronics, smart metering and local generation are allowing cities to diversify their energy portfolio. Transactive energy is shown as an approach to change the way energy is purchased and sold. This combines economic and control mechanisms to allow for a dynamic balance of supply and demand which uses value created as a key operational parameter. It is allowing cities to develop lower cost, more stable networks capable of handling a much bigger share of renewable sources. This particularly applies to electricity, however the report shows that account needs to be taken of the other energy sectors. A number of cities have existing energy and transport infrastructure that need integrated planning. Not all energy can sensibly arrive as electricity from renewable sources so other vectors such as district heating and hydrogen gas networks have a role to play in this integrated planning. Importantly, these technology developments are blurring the line between producers, distributers and consumers by allowing non-traditional energy players, such as technology companies, to enter the market. Corporates are increasingly looking for opportunities to become power producers in the new urban energy rush and could become significant contributors in the future.
