Grimshaw-designed facility to be built by Sir Robert McAlpine, VolkerFitzpatrick and Bouygues
HS2 has unveiled its designs for the first of four vent shaft head houses for the railway’s 10-mile-long Chiltern tunnel.
The Chalfont St Peter facility in Buckinghamshire will house a 60m shaft providing ventilation and emergency access to the twin bore tunnels below, the longest and deepest tunnels on the route.
The Grimshaw-designed plans will be built by HS2’s main contractor Align, a JV between Sir Robert McAlpine, VolkerFitzpatrick and Bouygues.
Jacobs is the enginnering consultant, while LDA is the landscape architect.
Consultations with residents and local groups have resulted in a barn-like building designed to mimic local agricultural buildings.
Local wildlife will also be encouraged to move in with reptile basking banks, a grass snake laying heap, bird boxes and a hibernaculum included in the designs.
The plans are the latest step for the Chiltern tunnel project, which was undertaking preparation works last month for the arrival of two 2,000 tonne tunnelling machines due to be shipped over from Germany.
The first of the machines will begin work early next year at the tunnel’s 136 acre entrance site, HS2’s biggest construction site.
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