The facts
Project Location: St Athan, Wales
Client: Metrix
Start Date: 2007
Completion Date: 2014
Contract Type: Fixed
Procurement method: Competitive tender
Project Construction Value: £700m
Services provided: Complete Acoustic design
and commissioning, Environmental Noise Impact Assessments
The project
Capita Symonds has been engaged to assess the acoustics
for the proposed Defence Training Review (DTR) facilities at RAF
St. Athan.
The new academy – which is due to open in 2014 - is the result
of the government’s Defence Training Rationalisation (DTR), a major
initiative to reorganise the entire training programme for the
Armed Forces, Royal Air Force, Army, and Royal Navy. DTR sees the
training currently provided by 30 UK sites moved to the new
facility at St. Athan, which will teach a range of skills from
aeronautical engineering to information technology to over 5,000
new recruits and existing service personnel.
The acoustics team is working with both internal and external
clients as part of the Metrix Consortium that was chosen as
provisional preferred bidder for architectural services on the
programme – the largest PPP project in the UK to date. The team is
designing the workplace and training elements of the scheme,
including the conversion of a recently constructed ‘superhanger’ at
the core of the site into one of the key training centres. The team
is also designing classroom blocks for more traditional style
teaching, state-of-the-art learning resource centres, lecture
theatres, and administrative office accommodation including the
prestigious Academy HQ building, living accommodation, library
museum, and leisure & entertainment facilities.
The tasks are to provide good internal acoustics for both
workplace & training elements, the living, leisure and
entertainment facilities of the scheme whilst ensuring that noise
breakout did not breach planning conditions designed to protect
nearby noise sensitive receptors.
Acoustic modelling techniques to determine the ventilation
strategy for the different buildings within the proposed
development were used. The modelling helped to determine the
optimum operation of military equipment externally whilst meeting
the criteria for internal levels within the lecture/classroom thus
negating the needing for mechanical ventilation in most areas
whilst ensuring that noise breakout did not breach planning
conditions designed to protect nearby noise sensitive
receptors.
Extensive Environmental Acoustics works have been employed on
the project. Complex noise mapping and Noise Impact Assessments
have been carried out across the site to ensure that planning
conditions could be adhered to.