Cleland House

Cleland House, opposite Abell House in Westminster is the second building in a distinguished development by Berkeley in Westminster. Designed by executive Architect’s DSDHA, the building continues the relationship with new and established buildings in the area. 129 exceptional apartments and penthouses are arranged on 13 floors and finished with a rich palette of materials. A business suite is located on the ground floor, with landscaped gardens over a triple level basement car-park.

Manhire Associates worked closely with DSDHA to develop proposals in 2010, and upon gaining Planning Approval in 2011, began detailed design work with epr on the challenging 13 storey development. 

The building is clad with an expressed light stone ‘exoskeleton’ and pre-cast light stone panels. Unclad precast balconies in the same light stone finish have been incorporated into the main frame to maintain the crisp light stone finish and give a thin balcony edge on the façade. The facade posed a number of technical challenges as well as logistics and sequencing difficulties arising from the confined and land-locked site in a central location. The building frame was constrained in overall height and with irregular apartment layouts and inset balconies, structural solutions were carefully developed to accommodate a variety of thermal specifications, geometrical limitations, differential movements and appearance requirements. 

To create a double storey column free entrance lobby at ground floor, cantilever cross walls between second and fourth floor were cleverly incorporated to cantilever out supporting the building above.

The triple level basement is founded on 1200mm thick raft foundations, within a secant piled basement wall designed with an integral reinforced concrete lining wall. Manhire Associates undertook detailed ground movements assessments to investigate likely effects on adjacent buildings as well as an appraisal of any effects on ‘water’ wells in the vicinity. 

A service tunnel was also constructed under the public highway to link the building with Abell House with a group of ducts ‘thrust bored’ between the buildings.

The basement was constructed by Expanded and proposals were developed to advance the construction of part of the basement slab to prop the secant wall avoiding the need for horizontal shores. The ‘doughnut’ slab was constructed with ‘couplers’ carefully detailed at construction joints together with temporary ‘plunge’ columns to support the slab off additional temporary piles.   

The project was selected for the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition in 2012.