Preserving the past, building the future – JPS Civil & Structural Engineers’ latest Wrexham heritage project is taking shape
A Grade II listed former library building in the heart of Wrexham city is being transformed into a creative hub to benefit the city’s residents and businesses. JPS Civil and Structural Engineers are working alongside Wrexham-based Lawray Architects and Read Construction to regenerate this heritage building and modernise it into a vibrant new destination for the city.
JPS is helping to transform Wrexham’s Old library building, preserving its historic charm through innovative engineering
The Old Library building on Queen’s Square in Wrexham was built as a Carnegie library in 1907 with funding from American-Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. The building served as Wrexham’s public library until 1973. It later became council offices and has been vacant for many years leading up to this latest chapter in its history. According to the Wrexham Telegraph 1907 ‘upon opening, the building’s ground floor consisted of a lending library, magazine room, newsroom and a ladies’ room. While the first floor had a “very fine” lecture hall, offices and a bookstore.’
Image courtesy of Wrexham archives
A new lease of life
Wrexham County Borough Council’s plan for the building is a £4 million transformation into a hub for the creative industries. The aim is to capitalise on the growth of the creative industries and to attract new businesses and talent to the area. According to a council report, the Creative Hub will contain three floors of rentable space that can be used as workshops, production facilities, recording studios, offices and exhibition spaces. There are also plans for the building to include a café with outdoor seating areas. The report notes that the building requires substantial modernisation to become fit for contemporary use and to meet contemporary accessibility standards.
Therefore the brief for the new design of the building includes the following elements:
- Conservation of historical features
- Internal reconfiguration
- New glass extension
- Improved thermal performance and energy efficiency
- Accessibility enhancements
The project team consists of Lawray Architects providing the design and Read construction as the main contractors. JPS Civil and Structural Engineers are providing the full civil and structural design alongside SP Projects, WSP, MEP and conservation consultants.
Structural engineering challenges of a historic building
As with all listed buildings, there were structural challenges to overcome with the structural design, including
- Integrating the modern, glazed extension with the historic building fabric of the original structure
- Designing piled foundations in close proximity to the existing building and the adjacent council buildings on a constrained site
- Strengthening and repairing the existing structural elements such as the roof and the upper floors to cope with the extra weight and increased loading from its change of use
Structural design – modern glazing
The feature cafe extension has been designed to create a contemporary addition to the original building which maximises natural light into the cafe dining area. The extension was formed as a hot rolled steel frame supporting glazing to three elevations and the roof. All steelwork is visible from within the cafe so our engineers worked closely with the steelwork fabricator, Kendley Ltd to detail the frame and the bolted connections to a high aesthetic standard, making use of countersunk bolted joints and macalloy bracing.
Challenges below ground
The extension is located over a former service yard and ground surveys revealed the area to be highly congested with drainage, gas, telecoms and electrical cables serving the building. Our civil engineers worked alongside the main contractor to agree service and sewer diversions to clear the area prior to construction. The extension is located adjacent to an existing basement so the foundations needed to extend through the soft and variable ground into the firm, natural material approximately 5 meters below ground level. For this reason, a foundation solution utilising steel driven mini-piles was adopted, whereby 6m long lengths of steel tubing were driven into the ground to provide a solid support to the reinforced concrete ground-beams and ground slab.
Balancing heritage with modern requirements
Works within the existing building include the installation of a new platform lift to serve the first floor. There are also layout changes, repairs to the roof and various strengthening works to floors, walls and roof structures. Due to the age of the original building and the more modern extension, a variety of historic structural forms were uncovered during our structural investigation works, and following our structural checks and loading calculations, a suite of strengthening works were scoped out to increase the weight bearing capacity of the building to meet the requirements of the proposed building use.
Timber strengthening works have been implemented as part of the re-roofing and ceiling restoration works. Floor strengthening has been implemented over the original basement where the historic clinker concrete floor was found to have deteriorated over the years of exposure to damp basement environmental conditions.
A collaborative approach
Working alongside trusted design and construction partners, we were able to work as a collaborative team to coordinate designs prior to construction. The scheme was modelled in Revit to produce a fully coordinated, multi-disciplinary 3D model. This allowed for clash detection workshops to be undertaken prior to construction to check that the building, the structure and the building services (ductwork, cabling etc.) were all integrated and coordinated. Early, detailed site and building surveys allowed the team to understand the site constraints, the challenges in the ground and the building defects which would need to be rectified as part of the works.
JPS Civil and Structural Engineers are always pleased to work alongside trusted and respected clients and partners and we are looking forward to the works progressing to a successful completion and handover in early Autumn 2025.
JPS Structural engineers have years of expertise in heritage projects
For further information about our experience in structural engineering heritage projects follow the link to our webpage. Here you will find examples of other heritage projects such as The Square at Chester zoo and the Grosvenor Pulford Hotel on the outskirts of Chester. If you are looking for an experienced civil and structural engineering team please get in touch with us via phone or email.
