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Project
HENRY MEADOWS
Cannock Road - Wolverhampton
Richardson Developments, long
standing clients of Building Design Practice, were in possession
of a 6 acre site just a mile from Wolverhampton Town Centre
which contained buildings, built in the late 1930's and early
1940's, -up to 20,000 square metres of which 12,000 square
metres included a large existing factory. The building, formerly
built with Ministry of Defence finance just prior to the Second
World War, was used to produce engine blocks and provided
one of the largest single pockets of employment in the Wolverhampton
area up until the mid 1960's when it was acquired by Richardsons
and leased to Goodyear who vacated the building in 1992. The
buildings were in a very poor state of repair and not suitable
to be offered on the market for sale or lease.
Building Design Practice were commissioned by Richardsons
in July 1993 to prepare design proposals for total refurbishment
and preparation of a City Grant application which was supported
by Wolverhampton City Challenge as the site fell within an
area of high unemployment and general industrial decline,
grant assistance of £700,000 was given in January 1994.
Building Design Practice's proposals involved the demolition
of 10,000 square metres of buildings; removal of all existing
surfaces and basements; removal of all building fabric to
leave just the main steel frame of a 10,000 square metre warehouse/factory
unit with much improved site manoeuvrability and loading dock
facilities to provide as much flexibility as possible to accommodate
potential enquiries.
The new building envelope comprises a new concrete floor;
composite wall cladding with insulated personnel and goods
doors; high performance roof; and a sub-station sufficiently
sized to accommodate a high tension transformer. In addition
a high grade of fencing and landscaping was implemented to
safeguard the security of the site and its environment.
Demolition and construction was commenced in March 1994 and
completed to a very high standard not commonly associated
with buildings of this nature. Such is the quality of the
refurbishment that most visitors to the site following its
completion assumed that it was a newly constructed building.
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