The Chiswick Cinema project aimed to construct a new multi-storey cinema and restaurant at the site inside the existing three-storey building occupying the western half of the front of the site. The majority of the interior walls were removed, requiring significant temporary works solutions for lateral restraint and a new steel frame and concrete flooring to be constructed within the existing outer walls to keep the current façade of the building.
Also at the front of the site, a single storey building was extended upwards to provide a new two-storey extension for residential flats, with a new lift for access. Engaged to deliver the shell and core works, our scope of works included:
- New foundations, piling and underpinning
- New steel structure for new upper floors
- New external perimeter walls and roof for extension
- Removal of existing internal walls, chimneys, columns, stairs and partitions
- Removal of windows, skylights, shutters and shopfronts (infilling of window openings)
- Lowering and reinforcement to existing spaces
- Removal of sprung / suspended timber floors
- New shopfront, new front elevation windows, new sky lights
- New terrace created to front first floor elevation
- New vertical garden above terrace
- New stairs / lifts
- M&E Upgrades throughout
We had a significant client delay in agreeing party wall award licences – to mitigate the delay we resequenced works to keep away from the party walls and modified our craneage strategy to avoid oversailing certain properties, resulting in a 6 week saving to the programme. We also had significant changes to the substructure design – to mitigate the delay here we changed the phasing and worked in other areas, resulting in a 2 week saving.
Due to the lack of space and surrounding neighbours, we selected a mobile crane option rather than a static tower crane to reduce the oversailing issues and licensing requirements. We also liaised with the council to obtain parking bay suspension licences for access into the rear of the site by our construction vehicles. Other licences included scaffold and hoarding licences. We also saved the client money on temporary works solutions required by installing the new frame prior to demolishing the frame in the second building.
The building fronted onto a narrow pavement adjacent to a trunk road in Chiswick, closely flanked by operational businesses. As the building occupied 100% of the site, we created a gantry for our (fire rated) site cabins over the pavement with a crash decked pedestrian walkway beneath – this allowed us to carry out the works safely, whilst not blocking any access for the public, and saving our client money on pavement closure fees. This also allowed the surrounding businesses to carry on business as usual, without any detriment to the footflow past the premises if we had needed to close the pavement. As part of the pre-planning exercise, we liaised with the neighbour representatives so they were fully aware of our plans; we then gave regular updates throughout the contract and were on hand to address any queries or concerns.
