The 18-22 Grove Vale project will create a new 3-storey mixed-use building with a basement in East Dulwich, in the London borough of Lewisham. The development will provide a public library at the rear and 4,800ft² of commercial space at the front of ground floor and basement floors, currently to be occupied by Marks & Spencer’s supermarket. 20 residential units will be arranged over 14,500ft² on 1st to 3rd floors. At roof level, a green amenity space will be provided.

The existing site posed a number of challenges, including only accessed from a narrow street that also serves a neighbouring building material yard and being adjacent to East Dulwich Railway station. A complicated sequence of replacing the existing walls that retained the access platform to the station with new, piled wall foundations had to be considered and developed in conjunction with the contractor and Network Rail.

The new building will be constructed mainly of reinforced concrete and will be founded on an array of pilecaps and piles embedded into the underlying Clay and Sand strata. The roof will be of a mild steel construction with concrete on metal deck infills. The basement is formed within a sequence of contiguous, CFA piled walls and lined with concrete, specially designed to provide one of the waterproofing lines of defence.

MBP have used BIM practices to create a 3D building model which was used both to produce an analysis and design package and construction information that was shared with other project stakeholders.