The aerial photographs show the latest progress of one of our current projects for Holkham Estates.  The building is located at the end of Lady Anne’s Drive, which is a tourist hotspot and provides parking facilities and access to the Holkham beach.  The building is a bespoke Orientation Centre that will provide interpretation of the surrounding wildlife as well as much needed toilet and café facilities.  With its circular shape and central circular courtyard the finished building will create quite a statement.  We have worked with the client and Project Team to provide full Civil and Structural Engineering services for the entire build as well as a Contract Administration role.

With the Phase 1 utilities installation (water, electric, drainage and telecoms) completed last summer (which was a challenge in itself!) the construction of the Orientation Centre started in late 2017.  The building has a piled concrete raft foundation and curved reinforced concrete walls, which retain an earth embankment to help disguise the building within the surrounding landscape.  The galvanised steel frame that can be seen on the photographs, sits within the concrete structure.  Between this steel frame the secondary timber structure will be supported.  The photographs show the start of the installation of the radial timber roof joists, which will be left exposed as a feature in the building.

The building is due for completion in early August 2018, so the forthcoming months will see some quick changes.