Respond! Housing Development
Cookstown Way, Tallaght
Project Details
Client: Respond! Housing Association
Architect: Respond! Housing Association
Value: €36M
Services Provided: C&S Engineering Services
Category: Residential
Project Completed: 2011
Project Description
The development at Cookstown Way in Tallaght is a residential development comprising 154 apartments (1, 2 and 3 bed units), 8 group homes, 1 family refuge, day-care and community health facilities, crèche, 103-space underground car park and associated site infrastructure, with a total gross floor area of 14,000sqm.
The site is a long narrow site which is sandwiched between existing housing on the eastern boundary and the public road on the western boundary. The overall length is over 400m and the site is barely 50m at its widest point.
The structure of the units is based on load-bearing insitu mass-concrete walls with minimal reinforcement at opes, supporting precast concrete wideslab floors. The façade is predominantly a masonry façade with punched windows and balconies formed from cantilevered concrete sections. Masonry was non-load bearing and therefore taken off the critical path. Fibre mesh was used in the concrete mix to control cracking, as were crack inducers for longer panels. Over the car park area, a concrete transfer slab was required to change from a car parking grid to a grid suitable for the superstructure. The roof construction was reasonably complex in geometry, and was built using steel and lightweight cladding.
The lack of working space on the site was a critical factor. The basement excavation had to be piled with contiguous piles along the boundary with the public road.