Design Project Report: Landmark IT Building, Athlone

Appendix 1

1.0 INTRODUCTION

A Global IT company has recently acquired a plot of land and intends to develop the site into a new landmark building (Section 7.0, Table 1). The building is to incorporate a basement and 3 to 8 storeys to house its 60 person workforce. The building includes, but not limited to, reception floor, office space, meeting space, social area, canteen areas, car parking, some outside space for employee welfare.

The company has commissioned your Consultancy firm. It is up to you as the design team to break down the client’s requirements into a clear and logical format and to interpret these requirements in order to provide an appropriate design for the proposal. Any assumptions or clarifications should be clearly explained.

2.0 THE SITE INVESTIGATION

• Consider the existing site in terms of the proposed building layout, associated works and surrounding existing structures and services.
• Conduct a desk study of the site to evaluate the conditions on site.
• Compile a report outlining your site evaluation findings and specify any ‘further investigative works’ that you believe are required to determine any issues that you think may affect any future design proposals. You should include and refer to evidence to support your recommendations.
• Include in the report a specification for any site investigation works that you deem necessary in order to carry out a safe and complete design. 
• Identity and understand temporary and false works required for difficult sites and deep excavations

3.0 CLIENTS BRIEF

• The building is to be a 4 to 8 storey building with basement.
• The design of the building is to be functional, economic and have due regard to sustainability.
• As the building is to be a landmark building, it will be glazed from ground floor to roof level.
• For stability, one or two cores can be used. For a two-core option, the maximum outer dimensions of an individual core may be 10m long by 5m wide. If a single core is used it should not be larger than 10m long by 10m wide. You are free to choose the location of the core/cores to optimise stability and building layout.

• Each parking bay is to be at least 2.5m wide by 4.8m long. Vehicle aisles will have a minimum width of 6m to accommodate traffic flow in two directions or 3m wide to accommodate traffic flow in one direction only.
• External car parking can be achieved in the space to the front of the building or this could be a pedestrian entrance and landscaped area. The basement can extend underneath this area if required.

4.0 REPORT

Each student must present a design report. The report must be well presented and clearly laid out in relevant sections and using appendices where necessary. The report should include but is not limited to the following:

• A description of the site location and layout, with relevant sketches.
• Site clearance and preparatory works to be carried out.
• A desk study of the site under consideration with reference to databases available for historical land use and soil conditions.
• The building investigation works prior to commencing design of the project.
• The site investigation works that you specified prior to commencing design of the project.
• A building layout showing where all items on the clients brief have been included.
• Recommendations as to the type of foundations that are to be employed including construction/installation method.
• Recommendations as to the type of basement to be incorporated in the design including the method of construction. Justifications of these choices must also be included.
• Temporary and false works that may be required for the construction of the building.
• References of all documentation consulted in the process should be included in Harvard style referencing