Project Title: Q3 Academy
Location: Great Barr, West Midlands
Wood Species: DOUGLAS FIR
Product Description
The Project
The Q3 Academy, in Great Barr, is one of the leading educational institutions specialising in Design and Technology and an integral part of the client brief was to express and embody this, together with sustainability in the architecture and structure of the primary ‘heart’ of the academy – a three storey atrium for exhibitions, open lectures, dining area and reception. This unique hub is well over 1000m2 and by its nature needed to be light and open plan. In the initial concept design development, timber was seen as the ideal sustainable structural material to be used in an elegant, imaginative and efficiently contemporary way.
Various options were developed which incorporated double curved gridshell technology as well as folded plate systems; however, these were difficult to integrate into the form and planning constraints of the building. Instead, a planar diagrid arrangement was employed which simplified the junction conditions but provided the contemporary free span system that was integral to the vision of this space.
The glazing system employed was a pneumatic ETFE system which was able to span up to 6m without the need for any secondary glazing structure as well as providing a decent u value. The ETFE was also able to be fritted to control solar gain thus making the whole roof assembly an exemplar of sustainability.
With clear spans of up to 22m and a desire to keep the depth below 900m~m in order to avoid the roof appearing too solid from an oblique angle, the challenge was to stretch the capabilities of laminated timber to the full… at the same time requiring that all joints, many of them being moment connections, did not have any metal plates or bolt heads exposed. The columns were also fabricated from laminated timber and at 9.5m height are designed to give the minimum height to breadth proportion.
Our original design included moment connected joints throughout the diagrid and we utilised a new form of connector with recessed dowels epoxy fixed to the timbers. However, the Swiss fabricator who we developed this system with was unable to meet the budgetary constraints and a revised concept was adopted incorporating primary and secondary members connected with recessed plates and dowels. This was able to be tendered by a number of UK fabricators who were able to fulfil the financial constraints as well as a design which has the elegant simplicity of the original concept.
The concept of the roof allowed the elements to be fabricated, transported and craned in manageable lengths and weights with the main area of the roof assembled within a very tight time frame.
BUILDING OWNER: THE QUAERERE TRUST
ARCHITECT: ELLIS WILLIAMS ARCHITECTS
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER: GIFFORD
MAIN CONTRACTOR: BAM CONSTRUCTION
JOINERY COMPANY: DONALDSON AND MCCONNELL
