Cambria Consulting were the Civil and Structural Engineers for this State of The Art Super School at Sandfields, Port Talbot which replaced three comprehensive and one primary school on the single site.

The development included specialist laboratories, inspection facilities and clean room areas to facilitate in the research and development of materials and chemical products.

This BREEAM Excellent building utilizes state of the art transpired solar glazed elevations, feature glazing and high tech Clerestory windows providing natural light and ventilation throughout.

Due to the complex ground conditions the Client’s original designs included 40m long piled foundations and suspended ground slabs.  This expensive solution put the overall budget at serious risk.

On our own initiative we investigated alternatives that had been previously discounted and delivered an alternative solution which utilized ground improvement techniques.

As a result of this we succeeded in eliminated the need for all the piling and all the suspended ground slabs.  This also removed our Client’s risk in the ground as well as delivering program and cost savings to the entire project.

The site’s drainage solution is environmentally efficient using a system of swales to provide storage and a degree of infiltration and by integrating the SUDS storage solution within the overall landscaping strategy we managed to deliver further time and cost savings.