Queen’s Elms Student Village

Founded in 1845, Queens University now has 24,000 students. In keeping with this prestigious seat of learning, the University wished to replace a collection of 1960’s 1960s-style tower blocks with an attractive village-type environment to house over 1500 students. Poor ground conditions and challenging site topography meant that new building levels for many of the 47 accommodation blocks had to be created by introducing bold terracing, enclosed within a series of engineered retaining walls.

Conventional in-situ retaining walls would have needed temporary sheet piling to protect the working area during construction together with substantial concrete foundations, both of which would add to costs and slow down the building schedule. As the retaining walls had to be designed and installed as the site progressed and the old accommodation blocks were being demolished, the need for a flexible system that would cope with curves and slopes was paramount.