Trucks 'R' Us, Suffolk.

The new Trucks ‘R’ Us headquarters and maintenance depot was relocated to a larger brownfield site in Kesgrave, Ipswich. The client required a simple steel portal framed building that could facilitate open bays for heavy duty works, plus have two levels of offices with a grand front façade with suspended balcony.

We undertook design of the steel portal frame, reinforced concrete foundations and the cladding support structure. The construction was designed to be simple and efficient adding to the overall ethos/ architectural intent; to produce a sustainable commercial development.

The steel workshop structure consists of a sequence of portal frames spaced at 6 or 5m with a typical bay of 23m. The depot is characterized by a broad internal open volume delimitated by the headquarters offices at one end and workshop offices at the other. An internal composite mezzanine floor divides the offices over two floors. The lateral stability of the building is mainly provided by the stiffness of the portal frames and by a concealed bracing system along the orthogonal axis. 

The steel structure was initially analysed using Staad, though in order to optimise the design the portal frames were further analysed with CADS; a tailored software for this type of structure.