Last year RJD Associates (North West) Limited were appointed as CDM Principal Designer on the Unicorn Halls development in Preston, which involves constructing a 5-storey residential accommodation building with 121no units and associated communal facilities that will sit alongside The Unicorn on North Road, which is a Grade II Listed Building. The Unicorn is a vacant former public house that has floor accommodation at basement, ground and first floor levels, and is being refurbished and converted to form 5no residential units at first floor level with communal facilities on the other floors. The residential accommodation building has been constructed with a steel frame superstructure built off piled foundations with a suspended lower ground floor slab and concrete upper floors. The external walls are being clad with facing brick with aluminium glazing systems, and the roof is a flat roof structure enclosed with a parapet of varying height, with some sections of the parapet high enough to provide a permanent edge protection solution and other sections that are below that threshold where a work-restraint system is being installed. The scope of works includes constructing internal walls and partitions, constructing staircases, installing a passenger lift, constructing upper floors, applying floor, wall and ceiling finishes, installing kitchen and sanitary accommodation and installing M&E services. External works include forming circulation space and associated hard and soft landscaping works, constructing foul and surface water drainage systems with connections into adopted sewers, and installing mains services.
These photographs show the progress of the works over the course of this year, and RJD are very pleased to be part of a project team that are working very hard to deliver this landmark development.
