Project Heart is located at the centre of Tesco’s Headquarters campus in Welwyn Garden City and is an innovative office, wellbeing, collaboration and quality assessment centre.
The complex roof of the building is a bi-directionally curved, exposed glulam timber structure, spanning column free over the internal atrium, ground and first floor office and amenity spaces. Its curved surface has been compared to the body of a fish, which gives some idea of the challenge involved in forming this roof using flat CLT slabs and double curved glulam members. The design of the roof is further complicated by external support being provided by raking columns which are unrestrained at first floor level. The structure was required to limit horizontal movements to tight differential criteria despite the spans varying at every grid, and was modelled using 3D finite element software.
The specialist detailed timber design was closely integrated into the overall structural design by Fairhurst. The project was shortlisted in 6 categories at the Structural Timber Awards.
Photography: © Tesco Stores Ltd, Wiehag, LOM Architects
