UK-based Balfour Beatty Plc has secured a contract to deliver a £80 million ($122.8 million) student accommodation project for the London-based student accommodation supplier Urbanest in central London, UK.
Designed by UK-based architect Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM), the proposed student accommodation project will be located on Westminster Bridge Road, in close proximity to the South Bank Conservation Area and the Westminster World Heritage site.
The building will be 19-storey tall and will feature 1,092 bedrooms. The development will also include a new sixth-form college, a health suite with swimming pool, affordable office space, a school, cafe and landscaped garden.
The building will have a curved form, with attractive white banding and recessed glazing to enable it to blend with the surrounding street scene and public realm. The project has been designed to achieve a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating, and to achieve this, the project will incorporate a host of sustainable elements, such as photovoltaic panels and combined heat and power technology.
The building will be developed using modular off site construction techniques for bathroom pods and a cladding system, which will foster faster and safer construction. The construction of the building is scheduled to get underway in mid-2013and will be completed in time for the beginning of the 2015 academic year.