Worlds tallest modular building completed a year ahead of schedule

Off-site volumetric solution enables early completion and cost benefits

A landmark student accommodation development in Wolverhampton - Victoria Hall - now stands as the world’s tallest modular construction building.

Carillion Specialist Services (CSS), part of the TPS business group within Carillion plc, took the regulatory role of approved inspector on the £26.5m landmark development project. CSS carried out the Building Control function of plan appraisal as well as site visits, engaging with Manchester based O'Connell East Architects from the early conceptual stages of the development through to its completion.

The development is located on a gateway city centre site with the finished building comprising of 656 en-suite study bedrooms. It is an approved scheme, constructed using an off-site volumetric solution and volumetric modular construction techniques.
CSS’s early involvement secured design certainty from the start of the project, as Andrew Wilkes, Senior Surveyor for CSS explains: “The modules arrived on site as a complete unit including all fixtures and fittings. Subsequently a huge amount of off-site construction was needed beforehand to make this happen. This demanded an early design freeze to allow the modules to be constructed; as such CSS were involved as part of the design team at conception.”

He continued: “The client’s decision to engage us during the early stages enabled the modules to be constructed off-site with compliance guaranteed and this all happened a lot sooner than would have been the case had traditional procurement methods of Building Control been used instead.”

The end result was that the Wolverhampton development was completed a year ahead of a traditional procurement program, enabling Victoria Hall to generate revenues for the client well ahead of their anticipated programme.

CSS initially became involved in March 2008 where, as regulators of the project, the team established the necessary principles for compliance. CSS’s initial comments were published a month later and were included in the design which was developed up to issue of CSS’s first full compliance report in October 2008.

CSS had to establish the flats in “multiple occupation” principle, and began consultation with the local fire service in October 2008, as Wilkes explains: “CSS has a long established ‘product’ of treating student accommodation as flats in multiple occupations - comprising of clusters of bedrooms sharing communal living rooms and kitchens. The fundamental principle of this approach is a ‘stay-put’ means of escape, as is the case in blocks of flats whereby only the residents in the cluster where the fire starts evacuate their flat. This benefits the construction value by allowing the building to be designed with a single staircase due to the small numbers of people escaping at any one time.”

The design was accepted with CSS’s plan appraisal in May 2008, enabling the project’s initial work to begin. The nature of the project’s off-site volumetric solution entailed that initial work saw the installation of the base for the tallest crane in Europe.

Works continued on site throughout 2009 until the project’s completion last autumn.

“We have learnt a great deal from our involvement in this project,” Wilkes says. “CSS has significant experience in dealing with volumetric modular projects in a variety of sectors, but we are constantly gaining new knowledge and insights that we are able to pass onto clients. This project in particular highlighted how substantial engineering savings can be, so long as we are engaged at an early enough stage.”

Commenting on how the construction industry has changed, Wilkes continues: “Early privately operated developments were designed as apartment blocks and were low rise, low maintenance, built of traditional load-bearing construction and constructed to very tight budgets. In recent years, there has been a significant shift in the market. The availability of fewer and smaller centrally located sites and the rising costs of land, materials and transportation has meant developers have had to consider higher density, high rise developments and alternative methods of construction to continue expansion of their growing portfolios.”

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