old dumbarton road

Watkin Jones Group

The challenge

A very small and, at first glance, unpromising site, the brief for Old Dumbarton Road was to generate a development of 130 student bed spaces. Boundary conditions were typically complex, the site being bound by the River Kelvin, an earlier student accommodation building and a municipal car park. The greatest challenge was however the southern boundary, which was the entrance to a disused railway tunnel, vehicular access to which had to be retained in perpetuity for the tunnel owner, Network Rail.

Our solution

The tunnel entrance runs at an oblique angle to the site meaning the column grid for the upper floors of the building could not be maintained through the two lowest levels of accommodation. We designed an efficient transfer slab arrangement allowing the development to remain viable whilst creating provision for the necessary tunnel access at lower ground floor level.

At eleven storeys, the structural form was reinforced concrete, save for two steel feature columns, supporting the overhanging eastern gable.