Known as Sugar House Island, the whole site, bordered on two sides by waterways and on the third by a main road, includes a mix of commercial, residential, leisure and hotel properties. Vastint wanted to create a new urban environment on this ‘island’ site, and worked with masterplanner ARC-ML to strike a balance between living, working and leisure activities.
To ensure that there was variety across the development, Vastint divided the site into 13 separate plots. Waugh Thistleton Architects was invited to design for the North East Quarter, the commercial quarter on the site which was the first plot to be developed. It was seen as an important test bed for different construction techniques, using on-site and off-site methods, both traditional and modern including mass timber.
Making the case
for structural timber
Waugh Thistleton was appointed from Stage 2+ outline planning stage and the practice re-drew everything in Archicad at Stage 3. The work carried out by Waugh Thistleton was completed in two distinct phases and comprised five new buildings and two historic structures that were re-modelled, refurbished and extended. The first phase included four new buildings which were built from concrete and steel frame.
The second phase comprised the two renovated buildings, extended and refurbished using structural timber, and a five-storey new build constructed using cross-laminated timber (CLT) for the walls and floors, and glulam for beams and columns. The development also included eight private rented homes and all the commercial and institutional buildings were fitted out to Category A standards.
A learning
curve in Archicad
Chris Kempster, project architect at Waugh Thistleton was one of a team of four working on the project:
“This was the first time we’d used Archicad within the practice, so developing detailed designs in new software was a learning curve for us all,” says Chris.
“The project formed a test bed for the studio, with the original drawings created in Vectorworks before being re-drawn using Archicad at Stage 3.”
The additional support we purchased from Graphisoft helped get the team up to speed quickly. After an initial week’s training, someone from the Graphisoft team sat with us in our offices for one day each week. It was great to have someone on hand to offer us guidance and to talk through any questions we had.
When we weren’t in the office together, Graphisoft were on hand remotely to advise or look into a solution, often with a very quick turnaround time. Screensharing was particularly useful at this time.
Chris Kempster- project architect at Waugh Thistleton
Fusing historic
and modern structures
Two distinctive buildings were renovated as part of the development. The first was the old Sugar House, a five-storey masonry warehouse building, that had previously been used for gin production. The second was an old Victorian print warehouse which was retrofitted with a new internal structure, while retaining the existing Victorian façade.
We carried out 3D surveys of both the existing buildings and hot-linked the survey information into our live Teamwork file.
We then used the renovation filter within Archicad to build on the existing buildings. Knowing that the point cloud models were accurate and couldn’t be tampered with gave us tremendous confidence.
Chris Kempster
Waugh Thistleton added three lightweight modern extensions to the Sugar House, manufactured offsite from CLT. These provide double-height, self-contained workspaces suitable for lightweight industrial uses such as joinery workshops. Meanwhile, the upper floors were converted into eight duplex apartments. All the internal joisted floors and partitions were also crafted from CLT.
The practice retained the original brick shell of the Victorian printhouse but removed the roof and craned in a new panelised internal structure. The extensions were constructed from mass timber, with traditional lightweight partitions and space saving joisted floors within the existing building supported on a steel frame. Fitted with state-of-the art recording facilities and dance studios, the building boasts a modern extension, also constructed from CLT which is connected to the original building via a double height glazed atrium and timber bridge. The building is now the new home for music and dance collective East London Dance and UD.
Visualisation
with BIMx
Graphisoft’s visualisation tool BIMx was used at the end of Stage 3 and early Stage 4 to provide the client with an interactive walk-through model of each building.
BIMx was a great tool to be able to easily show our client how the buildings would feel spatially.
Chris Kempster
“We also worked with an external consultant to create a site-wide fly-by model which was displayed at the opening events and marketing suite. We exported 3D models from Archicad and dropped them into the VR model, all of which was then rendered and the flight path added. The end result gave a really exciting and immersive experience.”
Setting up
the BIM Execution Plan
The architects worked closely with the client, structural, civil and MEP engineers and the main contractor over the course of the project. Information exchange was coordinated via IFC on a fortnightly basis throughout stages 4 and 5. Both the contractors and the groundworks engineers were also involved in the coordination meetings.
“This was the first time we had completed a BIM Level 2 project and setting up the BIM Execution Plan was initially time consuming,” explains Chris. “However, investing the time at the start of the project and making sure everything was set up correctly to facilitate the management and exchange of information between parties benefited us in the long run and gave us an extra level of confidence.”
“Exchanging information via IFC was also new for us. It was a challenge as we were learning a new way of working and how to export the files correctly . The geo-location model was the most difficult to coordinate, but once it was all set up, it was a seamless transfer.”
Collaboration
and coordination is key
The entire development of Sugar House Island has been managed in 3D. Vastint employed a BIM consultant who carried out the below-ground clash detection while the lead architects for each individual plot were tasked with completing the above-ground clash detection for their respective areas.
We carried out the clash detection for the architectural, structural and MEP models. It was all very new to Waugh Thistleton at the time. However, it really helped, particularly with the exposed surfaces as it was so important to have everything perfectly co-ordinated.
The prefabricated timber needed to be spot-on and the combination of Archicad’s renovation tool, the point cloud survey and clash detection meant that it was. This rigorous approach created quite a lot of additional work up-front, especially due to the on-project learning involved, however, it led to a very smooth and error free on-site construction thanks to the early due-diligence in coordination.
Chris Kempster
A seamless
construction during lockdown
Construction was carried out in two distinct phases, starting on-site in late 2017 and completing in late spring 2021. Waugh Thistleton remained lead consultant and were close to the build throughout the entire process. During construction, the information exchange was primarily carried out using 2D drawings. However, the team also used Archicad to show the contractor certain details and interfaces and to review any unforeseen on-site clashes.
Having worked closely with timber engineers Eurban and structural engineers HRW, Waugh Thistleton had complete confidence that the timber structures would arrive onsite and be ready to go.
“The timber frames were exceptional – they arrived on site and went up incredibly quickly,” says Chris.
With the advent of lockdown, work continued on site but restrictions meant that Waugh Thistleton could no longer travel to site.
Prior to lockdown, we were on site regularly. However, once lockdown came into force, despite the restrictions, we managed to work very efficiently with the contractors remotely. Screen sharing was a very useful tool helping us to answer the contractor’s queries and solve any issues in this way.
Chris Kempster
Construction completed in May 2021, and many of the buildings are already tenanted.
About Waugh Thistleton Architects
Waugh Thistleton Architects is a London based architectural practice producing thoughtful and sustainable projects in its own neighbourhood and beyond. Established in 1997, the practice is a world leader in engineered timber and pioneer in the field of tall timber buildings.
A research centred practice dedicated to designing buildings and places of the highest architectural quality that acknowledge their impact on the environment, Waugh Thistleton advocates for sustainability in the widest sense of the word, focusing not solely on energy in use, but on embodied energy and longevity, and believes that sustainability and world-class design solutions are one and the same thing.
The quality of its buildings and commitment to the use of engineered timber construction has earned Waugh Thistleton an international reputation in environmentally viable architecture and design.
About Graphisoft
Graphisoft® ignited the BIM revolution in 1984 with Archicad®, the industry first BIM software for architects. Graphisoft continues to lead the industry with innovative solutions such as its revolutionary BIMcloud®, the world’s first real-time BIM collaboration environment; and BIMx®, the world’s leading mobile app for lightweight access to BIM for non-professionals. Graphisoft is part of the Nemetschek Group.