Drainage and Superstructure Design | Marshall’s Yard

Met Consultancy Group (Met) were contracted to deliver the civil, structural and drainage elements of the Marshall’s Yard project (a redevelopment of an 8 acre brownfield site in the centre of Gainsborough). The site was transformed from the Britannia Engineering Works into a multi-million pound retail, leisure and commercial development.

Marshall’s Yard originally formed part of the Britannia Engineering Works, founded in Gainsborough in 1848, by William Marshall. At its  peak  the  Britannia  Engineering  Works  occupied  16  acres  and exported  portable  steam  engines,  threshing  machines and agricultural machinery all over the world.

The redevelopment of this site provided a mixture of high quality retail outlets, office space, leisure facilities and public open space. The  former  history  of  the  site  meant  English  Heritage  required certain elements and details on site be retained and incorporated into the final design.

Met  were  contracted  as  the  civil  and  structural engineers  for  the  project  and  worked  closely  with  English Heritage  to  retain  the  fabric  of  some  of  the  key  features  of  the site. This included:

• Design solutions to refurbish some of the existing structures in order to make them suitable for their future use
• Steelwork  was  used  to  strengthen  the  existing  masonry structures  and  to  provide  support  for  the  new  upper floors that were introduced into them, and
• Inspect and strengthen roof trusses as the majority of the roof structures had deteriorated over the years.

The  new-build  structures  needed  to  blend  in  with  the  existing buildings  which  have  large  brick  facades  incorporating  feature courses  and  arches.  Met  worked  closely  with  the Architects  and  specialists  to  detail  the  brickwork  to  ensure  the structural integrity of the retained facades. Behind these retained facades, new  steel frames were introduced to support the floors and roofs of the new buildings.

Met designed all of the underground drainage  for the new development, where the use of symphonic roof drainage, and the requirement for a ground floor swimming pool within the JJB Health  and  Fitness  Centre,  proved  extremely  challenging  and resulted in large peak flows. Met designed and detailed on-site  attenuation  and  storage  to  control  and  reduce  the  peak flow from the site.

This project offered Met the opportunity  to work with large scale new and existing structures. The aim was to provide an economic  engineering  solution  that  didn’t  detract  from  the aesthetic appearance of Marshall’s Yard.