Project: New library build

Works: 3D high definition laser scanning

Area: London

Project Value: £15k

“The opportunity is to provide a freestanding iconic civic building which exemplifies the importance of Library, Education and Community facilities to the people of the borough. It will be a striking, welcoming building.”

London Borough of Southwark Brief, 28th April 2006

This brief, with huge limitations on the building footprint location and size, gave way to numerous designs, most efficiently and appealing of which was the design of an inverted pyramid with an open volume centre void that opens up the space to infinite possibilities. The design was intended to avoid the need for multiple levels, which would have created havoc on the interaction between different areas of use and impacted the level of staff required to manage the library.

Objectives

Vertical Survey Services’ engineers were approached to assess as built location of the slab edges and provide spacing dimension details for every location to allow external cladding panels to be placed accurately in their proposed position.

Progress and Outcome

With this intricate and unusual design, getting the alignment of all panels correct from an engineering point of view, would pose to be a difficult feat. The first phase of the survey was to establish reliable control to relate all surveyed points from. Then we were able to use the HDS 6000 scanner to survey the positions of the slabs and edges to accurately create a profile in 3D of the constructed empty shell.

By using a combination of surveyed data from a TCRP1201+ instrument, and the point-cloud data, Vertical Survey Services’ engineers produced an accurate best-fit line for all panels. By overlaying the design, the engineer was able to make adequate provision for the use of spacing blocks to ensure the facades were uniform and correct. A task where using traditional methods in combination with our latest technology, once again proved time and cost efficient.

Find out more

Call Vertical Survey Services on +44 7944 664067 or write to us using our email form for more information.