The Ivery, West Hampstead – another green wall and sewer build over…….

The challenging Ivery development, designed by David Miller Architects in the heart of West Hampstead is striking in its design with green walls set amongst a mix of stone and copper rain-screen panels. Horizontal and vertical timber louvres provide shading to the terraces and balconies to the 19 apartments. Both bat and bird boxes are integrated into the green walls which are visible from Iverson Road and the West Hampstead station.

As well as the constraints of the confined sloping site adjacent to the Thameslink railway, Manhire Associates carefully designed the building to ‘bridge’ over a shallow Thames Water Sewer. The 1168 by 752 sewer is just 2.17m below ground level and the foundations were designed to cantilever to support the superstructure to the 6 storey building avoiding the need for ground beams which would have been too deep giving very little ‘cover’ over the crown of the sewer.

The work was sequenced so that the lack of cover to the sewer did not affect piling activities and limits were set to ensure that construction plant did not surcharge the sewer.