Harrington Court

The top five floors of this large seven storey Victorian building in Kensington required gutting with structural alterations carried out, as part of a £6 million refurbishment to increase the number of units available for lease. Many load bearing walls and some floors were removed above first floor to accommodate a completely new internal layout. The walls were replaced by steelwork frames and the floors by steel beams and timber joists. All three existing staircases were widened or extended to meet current regulations.

A major challenge of the design and construction was to carry out the major structural works above ground floor level, while the shops below remained trading totally unimpeded. Spreader beams were required at the head of the ground floor load bearing walls to dissipate the high point loads from the new columns above. This whole process had to avoid the need for propping through the ground floor storey. Component weights were minimised to permit their lifting by conventional hoists.