Commercial Steel Framed Building

Not every Mansouri project is a house. This is a steel portal framed commercial building on a working site in Great Holland, and it is here because it shows the other half of what the team can do.

The foundations were bored and cast to take the column bases — on a portal frame everything depends on these being in exactly the right position and at exactly the right level. A frame is fabricated off site to fixed dimensions and it does not negotiate. If the holding-down bolts are out, the frame does not go together.

The steel was delivered in sections and erected using a telehandler, column by column, with the rafters lifted and bolted at the apex. Purlins were then run across the rafters to take the roof sheets.

The building was finished in profiled steel with translucent rooflights let into the roof plane, so the interior is usable in daylight without artificial lighting, and left open-sided to the bays for access.

The same principles apply here as on a listed cottage: set out accurately, get the substructure right, and understand the material you are working with. The materials change; the discipline does not.