Project overview
As part of a £10m investment, highly regarded Scottish care home operator Mansfield Care embarked on their biggest venture yet, building a three-storey, 60 bed facility in Haddington, Edinburgh.
Mansfield Care currently looks after 11 care homes in Scotland, providing care and support for the elderly community with a resident-first ethos in state-of-the-art facilities. Their newest care home, Hilton House, will combine residential care for the elderly with a nursery, catering for up to 60 children aged five and below.
It is hoped that the new care home will create up to 100 new jobs for the local community and provide around £2m for the local economy each year.
The facility will be split into six 10-bedroom wings to ensure residents receive the best possible bespoke care, and will also accommodate a café, salon and a private function room. A wetland will also be created for the residents to enjoy, as well as a natural pond to encourage wildlife.
The one-storey nursery will comprise two playrooms, changing facilities, a kitchen and office space.
Technical overview
Pasquill designed and supplied Roof Trusses to the care home, which is being built by Hilton House Ltd.
The three-storey care home and nursery had a complex roof structure, which had to be changed as the job progressed. Originally, the client had specified a 30-degree pitch on the roof, but after speaking with Senior Designer Malcolm Duff from our Uddingston design team, they opted to lower the roof to 27.5 degrees. Working with the client to find the most cost-effective solution, lowering the roof to 27.5 degrees meant that instead of manufacturing the roof as top hats, it could be made in one piece, which not only reduces cost but also makes for an easier installation on-site.
In the original design provided to Malcolm and his team, two dual-pitched roofs were specified, with a flat roof in the middle. Based on Malcolm’s feedback, the client opted to change to one dual-pitched roof and a flat roof with a 1.5 degree angle, as a completely flat roof is much harder to drain rainwater from.
Always working closely with the client to achieve the most economical result, Malcolm designed the truss as a ‘stub and mono’, as there are span limitations on the sizes of timber that can be used.
In a truss spanning less than 11 metres, 35mm timber can be used. Once a project goes above an 11m span, a truss must be manufactured using 47mm timber, which can have an increase in the cost.
Hilton House required a truss over 14 metres, so in this project, the roof design took a stub truss and a mono truss, which were then nailed together on-site. By designing the care home truss in this way, 35mm timber could be used and the truss could span the correct distance, while remaining in budget.
One challenge faced by the design team was the lack of load bearing walls. The structure of the building was a brick and block construction, where typically, all internal walls are load bearing, which Pasquill would use to support the trusses. Unfortunately, some of the internal walls within the home weren’t load bearing, so Malcolm redesigned the areas at the overlaid hips to integrate girders, in order to support the truss.
In larger commercial projects, truss designers often need to take walkways in the roof space into consideration. Walkways are provided so maintenance workers can gain easier access to services such as ventilation systems, sprinkler systems or solar panels.
In this project, a walkway was designed through the centre of the trusses, which proved trickier than usual, as there was a slight skewed section as the building curves round. This meant the trusses needed to be framed around the walkway.
As the designs were coming together, Malcolm was able to create a 3D drawing of the Roof Truss using MiTek software. He was then able to share this with his team, and also the client, so they could look around his design to make sure they were happy with the proposal. Once the trusses have been manufactured and sent to site, the physical drawings the on-site team receive include a QR code, which links to the 3D drawing online. This allows the on-site team to open the plans up on their phone to see exactly how the trusses go together.
View the MiTek 3D drawing designed by Pasquill’s Senior Designer, Malcolm Duff here: https://www.mitek.co.uk/mitek3d/?3d_id=b337db80-9a3b-4686-a0b0-e11a3e602b64
Testimonials
Malcolm Duff, Senior Designer at Pasquill’s Uddingston site, said: “We always work closely with the client to understand their needs for the project, and sometimes, like in this project, we have to work around to create cost-effective solutions. It’s always interesting to work with both the internal Pasquill teams and the client’s teams to come up with a solution that fits their budget, but doesn’t compromise on the original plans the client had.”
Robbie Stevenson, Business Development Manager at Hilton House Ltd, said: “I found Malcolm particularly helpful during the design process, and while there was the odd hiccup, I was very happy with the Pasquill trusses when they arrived. I would recommend Pasquill to anybody.”
Get in touch with the knowledgeable team to find out how they can help with your next project: www.pasquill.co.uk/contact-us/
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