Construction of the St. Margaret Kindergarten in Sopron
General Overview
In 2018, we were commissioned to prepare the structural design for the new kindergarten building to be built on the site of the former St. Margaret Kindergarten, located in the Alsólővérek district, in the southwestern part of Sopron, on Szent Margit Street.
The existing building was completely demolished before construction began. The new building, constructed using conventional building technology (with the integration of precast elements), was realized as a flat-roof structure with basement + ground floor + first floor + second floor levels. Its approximate footprint dimensions are 15.93 m × 15.58 m. The walls and floor slabs are made of precast reinforced concrete elements, while vertical circulation between levels is provided by precast reinforced concrete staircases. The foundation was executed as a conventional shallow foundation with a cast-in-place reinforced concrete raft slab beneath the building.
What makes this building unique is that, apart from the foundation, all reinforced concrete structures were produced as precast elements.
The completed building won the Construction Industry Award of Excellence in 2019 in the category of public/educational buildings.
Description of the Planned Structural Solution
The main load-bearing structures of the planned kindergarten consist of precast reinforced concrete walls and cast-in-place reinforced concrete columns. In other words, the building was designed as a longitudinal and transverse load-bearing wall structure constructed with conventional building technology, where the use of precast structural elements significantly reduced both construction time and costs. The external vertical load-bearing structures of the basement level were built from 30 cm thick LEIER LKF precast double-wall panels. The internal load-bearing walls were made of 20 cm thick LEIER LKF precast double-wall panels. The space between the two precast shells of the walls was concreted on-site, thus transforming the wall elements into fully functional reinforced concrete structures.
The vertical load-bearing structures of the kindergarten above the ground floor were also constructed from LEIER LKF precast reinforced concrete double-wall panels.
The exterior load-bearing façade walls have a minimum thickness of 20 cm. The internal load-bearing walls were likewise made of 20 cm thick LEIER LKF precast double-wall panels. The space between the two precast shells was concreted on-site, thereby transforming the wall assemblies into fully functional reinforced concrete walls.
In the planned building, reinforced concrete slabs were constructed above the basement, ground floor, first floor, and second floor. These slabs were built using LEIER LMP semi-precast floor elements, resulting in a structure largely equivalent to cast-in-place reinforced concrete construction. The slab thickness was uniformly 20 cm in the interior areas, while the cantilevered terrace sections were designed with a thickness of 16 cm.
The slabs, with their specified thicknesses, were suitable for both one-way and two-way load-bearing action.
