The Mansion House, Roundhay Park, Leeds

Roundhay Park is a special place. Not least for me, I have happy memories from seeing U2 and Genesis in concert there many years ago! More latterly, Capstone has provided full structural services on the Mansion House, a grade II* 1826 Leeds landmark.

The project

The £2m HLF funded project included major alterations to the 'West Wing' to prove new accommodation for the park ranger service, a new build 'Education Wing' to provide accommodation for visiting schools to the park, major fabric repairs to the house, including the roof, and repairs to combat roof spread to the conservatory.

The engineering challenges

Focusing on the education centre, this needed to be of exceptional quality, being a significant new extension to the locally iconic listed building. We worked closely with the project architect, Purcell, to help achieve the goal of creating a low profile roof which appears to float over a continuous band of clerestory glazing.

The solutions

We proposed a hybrid structure consisting of a reinforced concrete frame with slender steel plate 'fins' cast onto the top, creating the strength required to support the roof and resist lateral loads. Buildability and sequencing of the work was the critical issue for such an innovative structure, and we on site regularly to help the contractor, and also visited the steel fabricator's shop to oversee the fabrication of the crucial fins.