Bryden Wood appointed on the landmark St James scheme, Edinburgh

in January 2018, it was announced that Bryden Wood, the integrated design and operations consultancy for the built environment, had been appointed to work on the landmark St James scheme, Edinburgh.

They will provide structural engineering design for all precast panels, including the design of bracket connections. In addition, they are developing and designing parts of the cladding system, including joints and insulation. The stone cladding is quarried in Petersbuch Quarry, Germany and a digital model will be used to create the stone cutting schedules. Bryden Wood will model and produce quantities with sizes for all the stones that sit in the precast stone finished panels. Stone is used to comply with the planning aspiration to complement the surrounding buildings. The stone being used is Jura Gold, Muschelkalk and Celtic Blue granite.

• For the project, Bryden Wood will design and produce information for around 1,144 Precast Concrete Panels with Stone and 966 Reconstructed Precast Panels.
• During the first phase, information has been released for a total of 4,775 pieces of stone, weighing 112,633.59kg (112.7 tone), that will go on the Precast Panels.

Designed by Allan Murray Architects, the 1.7 million sq ft Edinburgh St James scheme will see the 1970s shopping centre, replaced with 850,000 sq ft of retail space, anchored by John Lewis, Edinburgh’s first Everyman cinema, the UK’s second W Hotel and 150 new homes. The new development will be the Scottish capital’s prime shopping destination and will link with and expand the existing retail areas of George Street, Princes Street and Multrees Walk. The construction phase began on 17 October 2016, with the closure of the St James Shopping Centre and the beginning of its demolition, with construction completion due in 2020. Laing O’Rourke, the main contractor for the £1 billion project, has completed its first year onsite, having recently completed the demolition work.

The BIM models of the cladding will be used by Laing O’Rourke’s ‘Explore Manufacturing’ to produce workshop drawings and rebar cages. Explore Manufacturing is central to their Design for Manufacture and Assembly approach, and gives a unique self-delivery capability that leads the construction industry in driving greater levels of design standardisation and construction quality. Bryden Wood will provide .IFC files to the digital team at Laing O’Rourke’s Explore Industrial Park (EIP), for the use of importing into PlanBar, the CAD solution specifically for the precast concrete industry.

To achieve this, Bryden Wood has used sophisticated modelling technique and rules, as per the Digital Engineering Execution Plan. The models have embedded a suite of custom parameters that will carry through the exporting process to PlanBar, essential information that will be used to automate referencing and producing information for the workshop drawings by EIP. Bryden Wood has worked together with the Explore Digital engineering team, to test and ensure that the process and the output is successful.

As part of the design, Bryden Wood is developing and producing BIM Models for precast panels connection brackets for the project. Each precast panel has been modelled to a fabrication level of detail and information, every bracket connecting to the structure. Bryden Wood is working together with project partners, in a collaborative way to coordinate every panel bracket location and interface with the structural members. By modelling all brackets components in this way, it will assist Explore Manufacturing via exchange of BIM Models, to position accurately all cast in elements like channels for connection brackets, windows, rectangular dowels and coordinate with the reinforcement cages.

The BIM Bracket Models for each Zone is used for co-ordination with other disciplines interfaces. For example, accurate location of pre-welded stiffeners, plates and holes for structural members. The model also produces accurate bills of materials for every bracket type and subcomponents of them; for example, rods, nylon shimms, bolts, channels and steel plates.

Kevin Masters, Bryden Wood, Structural and Civil Engineering, Board Directorsaid: “We are delighted to be involved in this landmark project. Our digital engineering strategy is demonstrating huge value through the coordinatation of vast numbers of components. It produces 3D communication tools, 4D programme sequencing and 5D quantification. Digital engineering is the integration of all of these things and more, it is the linking of the end use through the construction philosophy to the design and the bringing together of all the elements involved to create an engineered approach to how we plan, and deliver the end product.”

Kevin Masters, Bryden Wood, Structural and Civil | Board Director | BEng. MSc DIC. CEng. MIStructE. FICE. MIoD

Kevin joined Bryden Wood Limited January 2014 as an Associate Director and was promoted to Director In January 2015. Kevin is a Chartered Civil Engineer and a Chartered Structural Engineer and is a member of the Institution of Directors. Kevin has a wide experience in delivering challenging projects around the globe and across many industry sectors. In particular he has extensive knowledge in the following sectors; Residential, Commercial, Retail, Rail and Education. Complex, challenging developments on constrained sites are what Kevin excels at and he has extensive experience negotiating interfaces with third party asset owners, such as London Underground, Network Rail and Thames Water.

Bryden Wood Technology Ltd was founded in 1995 by Mark Bryden and Martin Wood. It has grown into a 175+ strong architecture and integrated design company, whose activities span from analysis and business strategy, through architecture and engineering. The business is operated on solution based strategy and a fascination with construction methodology detail-derived aesthetic. The retained client base has increased to include many blue-chip clients across a range of sectors. Bryden Wood has become the UK leader in off-site design and systemisation and has recently entered new markets including the Far East and Africa.

Laing O’Rourke is a privately owned, internationally focussed engineering enterprise with world-class capabilities spanning the entire client value chain. They operate an integrated business model comprising the full range of engineering, construction and asset management services delivering single-source solutions for some of the world's most prestigious public and private organisations.

--Bryden Wood