HCA Framework

Combined Colleges Boathouse, Cambridge

The combined colleges of Selwyn, King’s, Churchill and The Leys School needed to upgrade their boat club facilities by demolishing a tired concrete portal frame building and replacing it with a two-storey steel framed structure incorporating a large first floor fitness room and individual club rooms for each college.

The proposed development strategy not only provided much needed upgraded accommodation for the clubs, locating the majority of the accommodation, other than boat storage, on the upper floor out of the flood plain, but also presented an opportunity to positively contribute to, and enhance, the character of the area.

PBA supported the project from the planning stage by providing flood risk assessment services to get Environment Agency approval for the development in this sensitive river-bank location. Our civil and structural engineering designs were greatly influenced by the regularity of flooding and the requirement to not lose any flood storage volume.