Trussed rafters go on safari at Chessington

Construction of a 150-room hotel serving Chessington World of Adventures and Zoo, has relied on the versatility, load-carrying capacity and all-round buildability of timber trussed rafters.

Timber trussed rafters provide an economic solution for creating the large and visually-striking roofs.

The safari-themed, Holiday Inn Chessington, located adjacent to the Park, has been built with the architectural practice, Allison Pike Partnership, leading the project.

Following the decision by the design team to make use of prefabricated trusses for the roof, Trussed Rafter Association (TRA) member, Harlow Timber Systems was successful in tendering for the scheme and took on the detailed design work.

Harlow's GBP75k contract for the building of the two main roof structures of the Holiday Inn Chessington, which are separated by a glazed atrium, included 15 different patterns of truss, as well as all the bracing timbers and thousands of linear metres of tongue and groove boarding; employed to clad the unusual, wide sloping soffit overhangs.

Utilising Wolf Systems' software and a large variety of fabrication plates, Harlow Timber manufactured a total of 470 trusses.

These span up to 11.7 metres from the outside of the building to a central supporting wall so that pairs of the mono flat-top units are arranged back to back.

The upper area was then weathered with a felt roofing system laid on plywood while the 30 and 60 degree lower pitches carry concrete pan-tiles.

Commenting on the use of trussed rafters, the project architect for Allison Pike, Mr Chris Gill, says: "This was a comparatively straightforward roof, despite the changes in pitch, and utilising a prefabricated package rather than detailing up a bespoke roof is a very economic and easy way of procuring the roof structure.".

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