Reroofing works to a Grade II listed museum and art gallery building
Derby’s Grade-II Listed The Museum and Art Gallery was originally built in 1879 and is home to the world’s largest collection of works by celebrated artist Joseph Wright, who was born in Derby.
The works comprised repair, replacement and upgrade of three main roofs and clock tower across the building complex, together with the formation of two new disabled toilets, additional joinery, some accessibility upgrades along with extensive M&E upgrade works and lighting improvements.
We worked closely with the design team prior to the funding bid to develop the initial scope of works, and following the successful bid, worked with the architect and DCC to develop the scope and design.
Early on in the process, we held a full design review with the architect, M&E and structural engineers and roofing contractor to pull apart the design and ensure it was robust.
Our Preconstruction Manager and Contracts Managers worked closely with planning and heritage officers to ensure we adhered to any approval and decision dates in order to close out planning and heritage approvals. The nature of the project in a live museum housing valuable artworks meant that we had to had to ensure adequate insurance for buildings, contents and design responsibilities. This meant we challenged subcontractors to increase cover, directly employed temporary works engineers and checked client’s insurances.
Each of the three roofs required different treatment; roof A was lead and tile with associated structural elements within the clock tower; roof B had a mastic asphalt roof and roof C an insulated laid to fall felt roof. A fully designed scaffold with temporary roof was required. Given the specialised nature of these works, we made sure that we were using consultants, subcontractors and supervisory staff who were qualified and had experience of this type of work.
We need to ensure minimal damage to the existing building and its contents as the project took place over the winter months. By installing temporary roofing, sheeted scaffolding and ensuring sequenced working we avoided leaving areas of the roof exposed overnight. We put in place strict hot works protocols, with thermal camera use/ permits and extended watch periods and Safe2Torch protocols.
The site remained live throughout and is situated in a busy city centre location with close proximity to pedestrians and traffic. We ensured proprietary hoarding/sheeted scaffolding to maintain the health and safety of all and undertook detailed consultation with the Museum and Art Gallery, phasing works to allow relocation of artwork most at risk in timely manner. We undertook stringent QA with detailed Inspection and Testing Plans in conjunction with Fieldview.
Having delivered several previous schemes for the Council we were able to capitalise on our excellent working relationships to deliver the works safely and on time, adhering to the requirements for working on a Listed building housing valuable works of art.
The majority of the funding for the work came from the Museum Estate and Development (MEND) Fund, administered by Arts Council England which recognises the importance of England’s historic museum and art gallery buildings and the need for their good care. The MEND fund requires that award recipients provide specific information
including committing to measuring energy data and must demonstrate that the project has achieved operational savings. In addition, they must submit a comprehensive evaluation return to the Arts Council and provide a higher level of partnership funding. We therefore worked collaboratively with DCC to ensure that relevant data was captured through the delivery stages.
The data collected has shown that the recently completed works have significantly improved the energy efficiency of this Victorian building.
In addition, our sub-contractor NRA Roofing & Flooring Services Ltd won the NFRC UK Roofing Awards 2024 – Leadwork category for their work on the Clock Tower.
