The Beam

Built upon the remains of the former Vaux brewery, the Beam became the first project completed on the ambitious Sunderland Riverside project. The building provides five floors of Grade A office accommodation with views across the River Wear and Sunderland city centre. It also houses ground-floor retail space, a café and restaurant.

The structure features a 12m span precast concrete flooring, which enabled the development for a column-free office space. This design also allowed for floor to ceiling glazing, creating naturally lit workspaces. Feature diagrid bracing was utilised within the courtyard to stabilise the front of building, along with a feature truss to form the entrance colonnade.

Warren Dodds, CDM Manager commented "We provided health and safety advice to the client, design team and contractors. Paying particular attention to the intricate façade detailing to ensure that future maintenance could be easily and safely achieved."