Case Studies

Neuadd Garth, Bangor, Student Accommodation

Neuadd Garth, Bangor, Student Accommodation

Client: Watkin Jones
Project Value: £1.2m
Project Completion: January 2014
Project Manager: Paul Cooper

Overview

Neuadd Garth is a 140 bedroom four-storey student accommodation unit located on Upper Garth Road that has been designed for the needs of Postgraduate students. It was designed to deliver good quality budget accommodation for more mature students and has good sized rooms, with kitchens shared between eight residents and bathrooms shared between two to three. The location is in the heart of the university campus, just a five-minute walk to the main university building and less than ten minutes to the famous Garth Pier that reaches almost 500m into the Menai Strait and was built to be the landing point for the pleasure steamers of the Liverpool and North Wales Steamship Company to and from Blackpool, Liverpool and Douglas, Isle of Man.

Our role was to deliver the full M&E package across the development. The building had been used previously for commercial use, so the first role was to strip the building of all existing services that would no longer be used.

On the M&E side, we installed new heating boilers, pipework and the radiators throughout each of the bedrooms and common spaces. Domestic hot water was delivered along with all of the pipework, tanks and pumps. A plate heat exchanger was added to the plant room.

New mains gas supply was created and then delivered where required. All of the pipework was fully insulated throughout. Above ground drainage was also handled by ourselves, and the final piece was the BMS (Building Management System) to centralise the control of the heating, hot water and all associated services.

On the electrical side, the specification was much as expected with the first job to complete the sub mains and then add lighting to all of the room and common spaces. Each of the rooms have both wired and wireless data provision and fire protection, with the fire control panel repeated to the main reception. There’s an intercom to each of the units and CCTV to protect the residents and the building itself. With the height of the building, there’s additional lightning protection – this needed to be via earth mats, as the ground conditions did not suit more usual rods – and external lighting for the grounds and entrance approach. As one final touch, there’s a car park barrier and access system too.

The data requirement for up to 140 students all working simultaneously also called for a cooled data room with a fibre link into the building and the wiring and installation of two individual data cabinets.

On the kitchens and bathrooms, hand dryers were added and kitchen fans added to make sure cooking smells are removed from the space.

Looking at some of the other projects we have completed, Neuadd Garth is relatively small, but it was a project that is right in our sweet spot and adds another 140 student rooms to our total that is well over 10,000 in all over our 10 years or more of experience.

 

Creating the
sustainable building
environments of tomorrow

Quick enquiry

If you would like to discuss any of our services, please call 0151 343 1963 or complete the form below and we will be in touch shortly.

    Creating the
    sustainable building
    environments of tomorrow