ANG Artelia Group acted as Main Contractor and Cost Consultant for a major remodelling of the 600 year-old kitchen, buttery and senior dining room facilities. The project included critical repair work, rewiring and alterations within the Grade I fabric.
Quality temporary facilities
Feb 2013 – May 2014. With only a six-week holiday window, ANG Artelia Group manged the complex construction of quality temporary facilities that were close to the original standards.
Sensitive historic spaces
May 2014 – June 2015. Being a historical environment there were challenges to installing a modern kitchen with the latest services, with minimal space for integration. Underground ductwork became the solution resulting in services being hidden in the most historic parts of the college.
Mitigating historic building challenges successfully
Archaeological considerations – New lifts were required to carry food from the ground to the first-floor dining level, and this required excavation of servicing pits. The location of the trench inside the medieval town wall prompted archaeologists to investigate deposits associated with the old defensive circuit around the town.
Hazardous materials – There was significant asbestos removal and roof work to the city wall at high level. The whole ground floor slab had to be removed by specialist contractors due to contamination.
All hand-dig – All excavation work had to be undertaken by manual work due to machinery not fitting through the entrances of the historic structures.
Other challenges and discoveries – The brief also included removal of inappropriate materials such as lime plaster and mortar, which over time, was replaced with cementitious material – for example, in the buttery, 125mm of thick concrete levelling screed had been laid over a timber floor, part of which had the original 14th century floorboards.
Successful outcome for users – Runner-up Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) SE Awards. The works vastly improved dining operations and also prepared the main structure of the building for the next 600 years.
