Colaiste Chiarain, Croom, Co. Limerick

DBFL provided civil and structural engineering design services on this project which involved the construction of a new 1000 pupil secondary school on a 22-acre site. The building comprises a multi wing two-storey building of almost 10,000m² which includes various classrooms, an SNU, a sports hall, a general purpose (GP) area and an external colonnade structure. On campus there are two full size grass playing pitches, additional landscaped recreational areas and hard ballcourts.

The form of construction of the building is a precast concrete structure with precast walls, columns, beams, and floors provided by O’Reilly Precast. The GP Area comprised a double height space with a complex roof and façade structure constructed in structural steelwork. There was a high degree of coordination required between the precast concrete and steel structures, particularly in the GP Area and Sports Hall.

The large site required extensive site development works for the playing pitches, internal road network, site drainage, attenuation, fire water storage, a compensatory flood water storage area and an access road to a Limerick County Council water supply pump station on the site. In addition, the project required the construction of approximately 500m of gravity foul drainage outside the site boundary connecting to Croom Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Also as part of the project we designed a new 13m span two-way vehicular access bridge forming the school entrance linking to a new access road completed by Limerick County Council. The bridge structure comprised of prestressed concrete beams with an insitu concrete topping supported on reinforced concrete bridge abutments resting of precast concrete piles.