Site Visit to Norfolk County Council County Hall – 26th March 2014

The original Slater & Uren designed County Hall, set in a Repton Landscape, was completed in 1968, and (whether you like it or loathe it) the 20,600m2 tower floors are currently being refurbished, upgraded and renovated after almost 50 years, to extend its useful life as a modern comfortable office building. 

The £30 million plus project work, is being carried out by R. G. Carter, the original builders. 

Temporary works alone cost £1.2 million and the scaffolding tubes, laid end to end would stretch from Norwich to Gt. Yarmouth and back!

RSA were invited by NPS Project Manager, Andy Rayfield, a former colleague of Catherine & Michael, to a progress visit of the work, which includes reconfiguration of 9 floors of the tower to open plan working, (introducing cross-ventilation to a building that previously overheated or was too cold), restoration and replacement of all the facades and fenestration in modern high performance components and materials (the original Hathernware faience and stone, bronze fixings and bronze Crittal windows having suffered irretrievable failure), enhanced fabric insulation, removal of a considerable amount of asbestos, replacement of pitch-fibre internal drainage pipes, new M&E installation, WC facilities, sprinkler system, roof insulation and finishes.

The project is anticipated to be completed by 2016, in time for its 50^th. anniversary.

Michaels fascination with  construction and building design, started with a Meccano set, and then as a teenager when this huge  project was emerging from a hole in the ground, and continued through his first position as a drawing office junior in the then County Architects department in 1971, when this was still a relatively new building.

Today, our connection continues and the work in progress today, is a result of a feasibility study and option appraisal carried out by Michaels former NPS Architectural Services team and the NPS Building Surveying Group in 2011. Extending the life of the building was the favoured option. 

It’s completion will scarily coincide in with his state retirement age (although he will be kicking and screaming against it!)  

Andy Rayfields difficult role as PM, assisted by Keith Anderson (a Chartered Architectural Technologist), is to co-ordinate the design, manage the contract and deliver this complex project, managing dust and noise, whilst the NCC business carries on as usual, and to ensure that the staff are settled in their new environments when individual floors are completed from the top down, to enable work to commence on the newly vacated floors below.

We are very grateful to Andy and his team for taking the time to show us round and explain some of the detail and are sure, he would be happy to show this large and fascinating project to other interested groups over the coming months.