Garrard House, 31- 45 Gresham St, London
Situated close to St Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London, the Garrard house project was an extensive development of the existing building. The project included taking the building back to it’s structure, demolishing the top two floors and adding a further three floors. During the construction phase starting in 2019 it was one of the largest refurbishment projects in the City of London. The vertical transportation included a six-car group of passenger lifts (one doubling as a FireFighting lift) and, a large goods/passenger lift. Completed 2021.
Services
For RIBA stages 3 and 4 we worked through the services consultants Waterman Building Services. During the construction and commissioning phase we worked for Mace supporting them in delivering the vertical transportation package.
Particular Challenges
- The building was originally constructed with a central core of a four-car group of passenger lifts. With the additional floor and the much increased occupation density, lift traffic analysis undertaken, clearly demonstrated this number and capacity of lifts was wholly insufficient. Through many iterations of the lift traffic analysis an optimal design solution was eventually found by adding an additional two lifts to the group and building core. Hence forming a six-car group which would need to operate with a Destination Hall Call Control system.
- The first Covid lockdown arrived just as the construction phase was getting seriously underway. Mace reacted rapidly to implement adaptative ways of working so that the site could be get up an running again as soon as safely possible, albeit with a limited number of personnel. From a vertical transportation consultancy service point of view, we likewise adapted the way we worked to make sure we could continue to support them, and the lift contractor, on site during this period.
Project Team
Architect: Wilkinson Eyre
Contractor: Mace
Services Consultant: Waterman Building Services
