New School Mezzanine

Bitterne Park School is a secondary school set within the Bitterne Park Community in Southampton. Hampshire Mezzanine Floors were asked to look at the feasibility of providing a mezzanine floor to be constructed on the 1st floor of their existing building.

HMF carried out a survey to ascertain where the mezzanine floor was to be installed & then based on the existing structural engineering drawings established that a conventional column supported mezzanine floor would not be viable for installation on the 1st floor.

HMF came up with a design that involved bolting the new mezzanine floor into the existing steelwork of the building. Bitterne Park School then instructed HMF to proceed to carry out steelwork surveys & produce steelwork drawings & structural calculations.

HMF worked with the original structural engineers that had designed the steelwork within the building to find the required connection detail & design.

Hampshire Mezzanine also undertook a Building Regulations application so that the mezzanine floor could be checked by Building Control & also the Fire Officer.

The mezzanine floor project involved a complicated design to enable the mezzanine floor to match the existing second floor level of the building & HMF had to modify the existing fire resisting ceilings & fascia of the immediate area to enable the mezzanine floor to be incorporated.

½ hour fire resisting partitioning was fitted to 3 sides of the new mezzanine floor with fire resisting self-closing doors & also full glazed partition glass.

The outer wall was quite a challenge to design & install as it needed to span over 10m from the 1st floor level of the building right up to the top of the atrium & HMF arranged for a 5 staged fixed scaffold to be installed to enable the fire resisting on the lower level & above to be built safely.

Special ½ hour windows were designed & fitted to the atrium frontage to achieve the fire resisting required for the installation.

A solid 1 hour ceiling was fitted to the underside of the mezzanine & all connections & main steelwork were boxed in. A new decorative suspended ceiling was installed to aesthetically match the existing ceilings within the building & brushed stainless steel glazed balustrading was modified & added to, to protect the exposed edges of the structure.

The programme was a fast track installation during the school summer holidays. HMF not only managed to install the project within this timeframe but also managed to get the installation checked & approved by Building Control prior to the start of the new Autumn term.