In addition to a major £1.45 billion construction programme involving the new build or refurbishment of 562 buildings and the demolition of 496, the 35-year project encompasses a wide range of support services including catering, cleaning, transport, estate management, document production and handling, stores and waste disposal. The project has a total through life value of some £8 billion and covers army garrisons across Salisbury Plain and at Aldershot. Buildings include offices, stores, training facilities, dining centres, sports and leisure facilities along with 261 accommodation units delivering 11,500 single en-suite bedspaces for single soldiers.

CampbellReith was appointed by Aspire Defence Limited to deliver structural engineering design services associated with working accommodation, both new build and refurbishment. We have undertaken detailed building surveys in order to record structural defects and imminent repair works in advance of the refurbishment and alteration design proposed for offices, workshop, training and storage buildings. The purpose of the surveys was to visually determine the structural form and condition of the buildings to inform the design for refurbishment or alteration to accommodate change of use and/or enable the long-term serviceability of the buildings. All the surveys were conducted on buildings in occupation or use.

Offices
These buildings range in size from 390m² to 5,500m², providing troop, squadron, regimental, battalion or divisional office accommodation. The buildings are all single, two or three storey steel framed structures. The upper floors are of insitu fibre reinforced concrete composite slabs with underfloor heating systems cast into the screed.

Training buildings
Training buildings range in size from 300m² to 1,250m². Most of the buildings are two -storey structures and have associated offices, workshops and storage buildings. Whilst looking cosmetically the same, these associated buildings have variations in terms of area or handing. Most of the training buildings have lecture theatres attached. They also have direct classroom entry at ground level to allow for access to training vehicles placed outside.

Storage buildings
These range in size from 100m² to 3,100m². These buildings, with associated office accommodation, provide storage space for a host of technical and unit requirements. These buildings are generally of single storey steel portal framed construction, braced in two directions. Steel rafters support proprietary standing seam/composite roofing on cold rolled purlins. Typical spans of the buildings range from 8 m to 21 m.

Workshops
Ranging in size from 500m² to 3,575m², these buildings provide workshop and servicing facilities along with the associated office and storage accommodation for a range of specialist, technical and unit requirements. The building form was similar to the storage building but the spans were generally greater ranging from 13.5m to 30m. many of the buildings also had to cater for overhead travelling cranes capable of lifting 10 tonnes.