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Island Pavilion, Wormsley Estate

Stylish dining in a spectacular setting

The Project

As the name suggests, the Island Pavilion is located on an island within the magnificent Wormsley Estate. The jewel-like building, clad with glass and metal, sits serenely in the historic landscape.  The private dining facilities within are used during the summer opera season for Garsington Opera who have a magnificent performance pavilion on the Wormsley Estate. To the design of architects Robin Snell and Partners, the attention to detail in all aspects of design and construction makes this building a modern addition to the estate. The Pavilion is designed to fit seamlessly with the topography of the island and take maximum advantage of the panoramic views across the lake.


Building Control

Oculus were pleased to have assisted the Design and Construction teams in providing the building control services for this building in the most unusual of settings.  The level of intervention into the parkland was limited by the sensitivities of the historic setting.  Access for people with limited mobility to the Island Pavilion was challenging and from the car parking area a golf-type buggy is made readily available by the estate. The topography of the island is such that step access to the building could not be avoided. To accommodate the changing level a portable ramp is provided to give access into the Pavilion.

With an island location the building has limited fire load and good means of escape as part of the fire strategy.

The Island Pavilion has been awarded an RIBA Regional Award and a Structural Steel Design Award in 2015.


CASE STUDY
National Museum of the Royal Navy

Storehouse 10 at the historic naval dockyard in Portsmouth was constructed in the mid-eighteenth century, during an upsurge in naval building prompted by events such as the Seven Years War. It was originally used to store everyday supplies for working ships plus some naval items.

During the Second World War, Storehouse 10 was hit by an incendiary bomb, which destroyed the clock tower and most of the roof and upper floors. More extensive damage was prevented due to a strenuous firefighting effort to save the radar sets within, which were to be some of the first installed in Royal Navy ships.

Restoration of Storehouse 10 was gradual and was eventually completed in 1992. It has now been converted to form part of the National Museum for the Royal Navy complex. 

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CASE STUDY
Carlton Club, London

Following a fire risk assessment on the club, Oculus was brought in to find suitable solutions for fire safety works required in the significant findings of the report. With the club being a listed building any works would need to have minimal impact on the historic fabric and disruption to the guest accommodation in the Club kept to a minimum. 

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CASE STUDY
Airbus - AWIC

The new £40m Aircraft Wing Integration Centre is arranged to maximise opportunities for departments to share spaces, equipment and ideas and will provide an innovative, highly flexible and easily adaptable physical test environment that forms a proving ground for the future technologies. This includes Airbus’ Wings of tomorrow programme, part of which focuses on exploring how wings can be more efficient, lighter and easier to make and assemble, looking at the best materials to use, assembly techniques and new technologies in aerodynamics and wing architecture. Covering 9,050m2 the scheme comprises hangar facilities including a 'Strong Floor' and relocatable ‘Strong Wall’, a high capacity hydraulic system to power multiple test rigs, three overhead cranes, laboratories, testing control rooms and open plan offices. As this facility is to be used to develop new technologies it was clearly important to build in flexibility for future uses. The delivery team was involved through this period and translated the design development into physical form with the same mind-set.

The ‘Strong Floor’ itself is 40 metres long by 18 metres wide and is housed within a building over 25 metres tall to allow the testing of full size wings from the largest Airbus aircraft including long term fatigue testing. A total of 1,440 cubic metres of concrete was used for the floor which took some 23 hours to cast to a total depth of two metres. The steel reinforcement amounted to a total of approximately 280 tonnes of rebar, estimated to be around 54 km laid end-to-end.

The 'Strong Wall' is 14 metres long, 10 metres high, 4.5 metres deep and has a total weight of 220 tonnes. It is made up of four modules and can be configured in two separate two module walls or a single four module wall. The mounting surfaces are machined to a close tolerance and when erected on the strong floor all points on the flange faces are within +/-1mm of a flat vertical plane. The structure is designed to cope with billions of load cycles so resistance to fatigue is the determining factor as well as its immense strength.

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