Pro Structures Ltd

http://prostructures.co.uk/celebrating-ten-years-business-office-move/

We’re not quite sure how it has happened, but we looked at the date and realised PRO Structures has actually been trading for ten years! In that time we have gone from a two-man band operating from a home office to a team of nine, including seven technical staff from students through to directors, plus office management and business services roles.

We have survived the deepest recession in recent times, and have moved from working primarily on small domestic extensions to volume house-builders such as Redrow; specialist structural glazing design for sporting venues in the south west and mixed-use developments in London; and fascinating bespoke projects including listed building conversions, mosque domes, community centres and changes of use to create apartments out of old office and agricultural buildings.

We will be celebrating our first decade with a move to a fantastic new office suite in Westbury on Trym, where we will be resident from 1st January 2018. The new address is:

53 Westbury Hill, Westbury on Trym, Bristol BS9 3AD. All phone numbers and emails will remain the same.

We’d like to thank all our clients and suppliers who have supported us over the years, and we hope to be partnering with you for years to come.

* Clients:
- Redrow
- Persimmon
- Alliance Homes
- Barton Willmore
- Prelon Developments
- GE2 Architects
- Angus Meek Architects
- The Windowglass Company
- Ridgeway Glazing
- GSH Architects

* Projects:
- Coniston Community Centre
- St Nicholas Markets
- Lansdown Ridge
- Weir House
- Stanley Park
- Easton Mosque
- Caledonian Road London
- Gloucestershire FA training facilities

Founded in 2007, PRO Structures offers civil and structural engineering for residential, office, public sector and commercial buildings. A rapidly growing company, we have recently recruited a permanent newcomer to our technical team as well as a business services director, while benefiting from the accumulated professional experience of a selection of sub-contractor engineers and draughtsmen. We also work closely with highly experienced and trusted civil and geotechnical engineers where appropriate, to enable us to offer a full service.


PRO Structures is run by director Ron O’Connor, a fully qualified and chartered structural engineer with 25 years’ post-graduate experience under his belt. Ron has a wealth of experience on projects both large and small, gained within the UK and the Caribbean, and a proven track record in successful project delivery from scheme design to final construction. He acquired a sound structural engineering grounding as a graduate with Jenkins and Potter before moving to work for larger, multi-disciplinary consultants such as EGP, Mouchel Parkman and WSP in Bristol.

Here he ran structural teams to deliver cost effective design solutions on projects as diverse as hospitals, colleges, business parks and motorway service stations. Ron then spent three years in Barbados as a senior engineer for David Lashley & Partners Inc, where he worked on prestigious projects such as the Regional Headquarters for the Royal Bank of Canada. Before deciding to start PRO Structures, he worked in the residential sector for Hydrock with small and large developers on schemes ranging from one to up to one hundred dwellings.


Please visit our blog for all our latest news

http://prostructures.co.uk/news-2/

http://prostructures.co.uk/autumn-update-pro-structures-jetties-city-living-office-move/

With summer a fading memory, we are now enjoying getting back into the swing of things as we head into autumn. It was a busy summer for PRO Structures, as two new recruits have been settling in, which in turn has made us realise that we need new premises!

We now have a team of seven, including 6 engineers ranging from students to directors, as well as admin and business services functions. We are delighted to welcome Antonio, who has come to us from Wintech with a background in structural curtain walling design, and Petra, our latest student placement who joins us from assisting Prime Properties. Meanwhile our other student, Martin, will shortly come back from a civil engineering placement in Swaziland as he enters his final year, and Vitalijus and Oliver are going from strength to strength in their career journeys.

On the drawing board – from Anguilla to Caledonian Road

Our work on the 15-storey Royal Wharf/Caledonian Road mixed use development in London for glazing specialist Ridgeway is progressing apace (pictured above), and we are proud to be providing the structural design for the glazed facades. Antonio has particular expertise in this area, which is proving very useful. The building’s curtain walling is currently being erected.

Meanwhile, we are providing the structural design for New Road Jetty in Anguilla in partnership with civil engineers DLN, which is currently at the detailed design phase and will go out to tender for contractors in the autumn and is worth approximately £6m.

Partly funded by the UK Government, DLN is providing crucial engineering consultancy advice for the scheme. This will include a determination of the preferred location for the new jetty, bathymetric surveys and geotechnical investigations, as well as work on the decommissioning of the old jetty.

The original timber Road Bay Jetty was built by British Army Engineers in 1970. This was then extended as a reinforced concrete structure in 1978 and again in 1986. As the only import jetty for containerised goods into Anguilla, Road Bay is of vital strategic and economic importance to the island, which will also have a great deal of work to do in terms of recovering and rebuilding in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

Closer to Home
New build and conversion residental schemes

With an ever-increasing portfolio of clients and projects, our south-west workload is always close to our hearts. Driven concrete piling has just finished on a new 5 unit detached two-storey housing development in Congresbury, Bristol, for Creswicke Developments, for which we have undertaken the substructure design.

We are also providing structural engineering assistance to Logan Housing, for a new 23 unit scheme incorporating a degree of social housing, in North Molton, Devon. The scheme will use highly energy-efficient insulated concrete form (ICF) construction and driven piled foundations on part of the site, as there are large areas of historically made-up ground.

Meanwhile, construction is 50% complete on a bespoke mansion worth £500,000 for Spring Homes on the site of the former tennis courts adjacent to Redmaids School in Westbury on Trym in North Bristol, where we are providing engineering design services to the contractor B J Campbell (SW) Ltd.
Structural appraisal for barn conversions – a growing skill base

An area of work which we find ourselves in increasing demand for is providing structural engineering appraisal reports and engineering assistance for the conversion of agricultural barns into new residential or commercial dwellings. One such example is Phase 4 of the former Patrick Pinker Game Farm in Almondsbury, which is being converted to offices; this type of conversion throws up specific challenges which we are increasingly well placed to assist with as our expertise in this area grows.

Hotel knock-through at No 38
Boutique and Breakfast at your service…

Another technically interesting and challenging project on the board at the moment is for Boutique and Breakfast Ltd, where we are providing structural design for the partial conversion of 37 Upper Belgrave Road. This involves a ground to second floor expansion into the existing hotel next door at No 38 (pictured above with No 37 to the right), in order to create more hotel accommodation on the first and second floors, with a larger lobby being created on the ground floor by the knock-through between the buildings. The newly combined basement will also create accommodation and facilities for hotel staff.

This scheme is particularly interesting because the front elevation is listed, so we are working closely with architects Llewellyn Harker as well as the contractor Nelson Developments to addresses any unforeseen design issues as the building’s site strip gets underway, enabling the team to access the original structural elements central to and between t

http://prostructures.co.uk/easton-mosque-dome-extension-complete/

Bristol’s biggest mosque now boasts a domed extension in the courtyard of the former church hall where it is based, having commissioned a two-storey extension to cope with growing numbers of worshippers.

PRO Structures was delighted to provide structural superstructure designs along with site inspection services – and we are thrilled with the result.

http://prostructures.co.uk/straw-bales-caledonian-road/

These are exciting times for PRO Structures. We’re growing fast, with one new graduate engineer and another more senior engineer set to join us soon. We are thrilled with the scope and extent of our new schemes – which range from a wholly sustainable dwelling being designed with straw bales and rammed earth, to state of the art structural glazing design for a prestigious new development on London’s Caledonian Road.

Structural glazing design for Ridgeway on Caledonian Road

One of our most exciting current projects is the structural glazing design for a prestigious new mixed-use development on London’s Caledonian Road.

The 2.21 acre site comprises three main elements, all of which are poor quality, unattractive buildings: 431-435 Caledonian Road, the Balmoral Industrial Estate behind it, and the British Transport Police building to the south. Several of the buildings are unoccupied, and the commercial elements currently only sustain around 40 jobs.

The development consortium, made up of London Square, Family Mosaic, PKS Architects and Hawkins\Brown Architects, aim to create a modern, mixed-use, high quality development including 253 new homes, business and retail space which will generate up to 300 jobs, car share and cycle parking provision, and new landscaping and lighting.

We are proud to be working with Ridgeway Glazing to provide the mullion, transom and bracketry design for the glazing on the retail and commercial areas.

Office conversion for Briarlands Business Park out to tender

Our commercial work is ramping up, with the conversion of a 5,000 sqr foot steel frame agricultural barn about to go out to tender for contractors to create either one large or two smaller office units. Structurally we had to justify the existing steelwork for revised cladding loads, usage and changed external layout, to allow for multiple doors, windows and access points for office use.

Straw bales and rammed earth in Castle Carey



At the other end of the spectrum, we are working with DZ Architecture providing the structural design for a straw bale, rammed earth home. This totally sustainable, naturally insulated dwelling, being built on a sloping site, will look just like any other once built. Our team are hugely enjoying the design challenges of this innovative project.

Speedflex Thornbury

We’re also expanding into exercise space design, working with Speedflex to make internal alterations to Thornbury Leisure Centre, to enable the installation of a Speedflex dynamic exercise suite (billed as the perfect high-intensity yet low-impact workout). Speedflex have gyms in exotic locations from Dubai to Dallas, and are now rolling out their installations in the UK.

Residential News
We’re continuing to work closely with Hall Bros Builders in Coventry, on a new piled 3-storey apartment block called Lismore Croft; as well as on new bespoke residential schemes with GSH Architects and Nicholas Morley Architects.

Meanwhile, a change of use scheme to create 10 new apartments for Alliance Property Care, plus a new build, is about to start on site in Shirehampton.

Our client, social housing provider Alliance Property Care, who own and manage around 6,500 homes in the South West, proposes to modify an existing 3-storey commercial building to provide an additional lightweight 2nd floor while changing the 1st and 2nd floors, currently made up of offices and a break-out area, into 10 residential apartments. The ground floor will remain in use as a Job Centre, which Alliance currently leases out. Meanwhile, a new 3-storey apartment building will be situated on adjacent land.

We’d like to thank all our clients, colleagues and suppliers for their ongoing trust and support, and to wish you all a wonderful summer.

http://prostructures.co.uk/seasons-greetings-december-update/

With 2016 drawing to a close, and most people’s minds moving to the holidays, we just wanted to share a brief update and also take a moment to thank our clients and suppliers for their support this year. It has been a busy, change-driven year for us, seeing our staff numbers and capacity to take on larger, more complex jobs both increasing after a fairly challenging start – which makes the level of repeat business from many of our clients especially valued and a great endorsement of our work, and our desire to build long term relationships.

News just in… from the FA all the way to Barbados

We are thrilled to announce the winning of two exciting new jobs at PRO Structures – a new Gloucestershire FA football coaching facility, led by GSH Architects for which we will be providing the structural and civil engineering designs; and a headquarters for the Republic Bank Warrens, Barbados (images below).

The scope for the 2,475 sq ft Gloucestershire FA teaching/coaching and social facility includes new changing and social facilities, parking, landscaping, and associated works, and is led by project architects GSH.

Meanwhile the bank HQ is a 37,000 sq ft, six storey building with basement parking and a ground floor banking hall, and offices on the upper levels. With its Caribbean location, and it being a tall building, we will need to design for both hurricane wind loading and seismic activity, posing interesting challenges and further developing our knowledge base. With the higher level of software requirements for this job, including finite element analysis to assess the impact of a range of physical effects on a building, we now have the capacity to design for more complex and taller structures on any scheme, as well as non-standard shapes.

Georgian grandeur – a tale of two buildings
(and a fortuitous wine cellar)

We’re also delighted to be working once more with Clear Future Architects on 25 Upper Belgrave Road in Clifton, Bristol – this Georgian building has a listed front elevation and the client wishes to change all of the internal floor plans. This led to an interesting design brief, as we needed to work closely with both the architect and contractor to modify both the internal and external superstructure load paths in order to meet the client’s needs, while respecting the listed façade and historical nature of the building. As a result, PRO Structures has designed new steel frames, both internally and externally (for the rear elevation), to maintain the building’s stability and structural integrity without compromising the aesthetics. On site investigations also uncovered an original Georgian vaulted brickwork potable water storage tank under the building which is now going to be converted into a wine cellar for the client.

Glazed structures on the drawing board

We’re also working with structural glazing specialists Windowglass on another scheme; this time providing the component design and justification for Northamptonshire Police NAB (Northern Accommodation Building)’s main entrance, which will include a glazed façade.

Residential News

Our latest residential schemes to complete include a renewal of our relationship with Hawkfield Homes, following our work on their development on Okebourne Road in Brentry; this time we have carried out the structural design for two new 3-bedroom homes in Haw Lane, Olveston, which have now been built and sold (image below). PRO Structures has also carried out the civil and structural tender design for a new dwelling on the site of the former tennis courts on Southfield Road in Westbury-on-Trym for Spring Homes Ltd.

Meanwhile, a revised scheme design is underway on a new mixed use development on the junction of Wells Road with Redcatch Lane in Knowle, Bristol, to create a three-storey, 5,400 sq ft building with ground floor offices and six apartments on the 1st and 2nd floors. This work is for Curtis Wayne Affordable Homes and led by Foresight PM Ltd. Finally, the next phase of the Redrow development on the old Dings Crusaders RFC site will start in the New Year.

That’s it from us; it just remains for us to wish you a truly happy, healthy and peaceful Christmas, and all the very best for 2017, both at home and at work, and we look forward to being in touch in the New Year.