Copper Dragon Brewery

Project Brief

Design, obtain planning and build a unit to house Copper Dragon's new Brewery whilst optimising the available space on site and considering local flood risk

Unique Challenges

There was a strong possibility that soft ground would be encountered during placing of the foundations
Numerous drains ran across the site in many directions
The site was in a flood risk area
There wasn't enough fall to the distant mains sewer
The brewery demanded large gas and water supplies
The internal layout needed to allow for future expansion of the brewery equipment

Groundworks commencing on site

Design

A ground beam foundation was designed which incorporated a retaining wall, this enabled the whole area within the building to be raised 1.2 metres and the external yard to the front elevation to be raised to the required level whilst maintaining forklift access around the sides of the building
A complete new drainage system was designed that would accept all new and diverted drains and keep them outside the building footprint.
The floor needed many drainage channels and had to be laid to falls. These drains then discharged through trade effluent tanks and flow metres before being pumped to the main sewer.
New water and gas supplies were fed into the building
Mezzanine floors, high level walkways and roof level trusses all had to be designed around the proposed brewery equipment to aid production and to ‘future-proof' the building for further development

Preparing for pouring the retaining wall