RPS Consulting Engineers were commissioned by Harcourt Developments to design and detail a new £60m Apartment Block and Landmark Office development as part of the Phase 1 Titanic Quarter Development.

The Arc Residential project comprises a large scale 450 plus apartment scheme centred around Abercorn Basin to the rear of the Odyssey Complex, in Titanic Quarter. With various sizes of units on the upper floors, and bars and cafes on the ground floor, each apartment has car parking which is accessible from a new road infrastructure, and surrounded by a new public realm space in the Abercorn Basin.

The Architectural concept was conceived as a series of curved buildings centred and focused on a reformed Abercorn Basin using a geometry where each building effectively became an 'Arc' radiating from the centre of the natural water course.

The concept builds on the scale of the adjacent Odyssey Complex - six storeys in scale stepping up to ten and twelve storeys to create a variation on height ultimately leading on to a second phase and concluding in a landmark apartment tower on the edge of the Waterfront. The design includes an open, landscaped internal street, together with open and closed balconies to all apartments taking advantage of the views over the River Lagan.

The construction comprises piled foundations supporting a two level underground basement for car parking. At first floor level a transfer slab supports a podium garden and the structure rises from here in reinforced concrete flat slabs. The supporting columns are kept slim to allow integration with the walls of the apartments and minimise intrusion.

The Gateway Offices complex is a landmark building of 120,585 sq ft located at the portal to the high profile Titanic Quarter development. It incorporates a construction of three linked office buildings in reinforced concrete, typically having five floors each. The building has been designed for flexibility - allowing the office space to be divided both vertically and horizontally. Good use has been made of the building mass and aspect ratios to assist the mechanical and electrical engineers in development of a sustainable servicing regime. A single story basement is provided over the full footprint of the office development to provide off-street parking. Again, the buildings are supported on piled foundations with the superstructure comprising reinforced concrete flat slabs.

In addition other services provided by the company included the design of the new quay walls, fire engineering design and design for the road infrastructure, drawings and public realm.

RPS utilised state of the art design and technology in its services for the project:

The flat slabs were analysed using finite element software packages, RAM Concept and Orion. All of the structural drawings were produced and co-ordinated using AutoDesk Architectural Desktop. A full 3-dimensional building model was produced for both the ARC and the Gateway Offices. ADT has proven an invaluable co-ordination tool on such a large project: for example co-ordinating the column locations throughout the model and reflecting changes in the drawings for each floor. In this instance it was a useful coincidence that the Architects in the project were also using ADT software. RPS was able to issue 3D information that could be integrated into the architects models rather than simple and traditional 2D overlays.

For more information please contact:
RPS Belfast (Elmwood House) - Planning & Development
T: 028 9066 7914