OBR Construction have successfully delivered a number of key capital project for Grwp Llandrillo Menai over the last 10 years, helping them achieve their vision of being at the cutting edge of technology and offer their students the best education.  

These projects vary greatly from scope and value, below is a brief outlook on our completed projects.  

 Llwynbrain, Parc Menai Bangor. This was a £1.2m refurbishment of an old office block, repurposing into modern open office, teaching spaces and communal areas for both college staff and students. To achieve this, a full strip out of the current internals were undertaken, including the M&E systems. The internal wall partitions were demolished and reconfigured, with the new walls specified to high sound dampening specification. Additional movable walls and glazed walls/partitions were installed to give a flexible open plan feel to the spaces.

New flooring, ceilings, mechanical and electrical systems were installed throughout including new fibre connections.
The windows were refurbished as a value engineering exercise were blown glazing panels or the gaskets were replaced in lieu of replacing the whole unit. All internal doors were replaced, with fire doors within the design strategy.

Externally the brickwork was repointed, the roof overlaid with a new Sika system to thermally upgrade the building and offer a 20-year warranty. The external render and window/doors were redecorated and new signage installed to display the new Business@Menai brand.

The car park was resurfaced and new lighting bollards installed to ensure that the external area matched the new look and feel of the building.

New Laboratory classrooms, Dolgellau and Pwllheli Campus. This project was to repurpose classrooms within two campus into new science laboratories. The project required us to undertake these works over the summer school holiday period to minimise impact on the students. To achieve this, we programmed the work and consulted all our supply chain to ensure all material would be procured before required on site. Once started, our team mobilised and demolished the current classrooms and installed the new ceiling grid and partitions. The laboratory equipment was supplied and fitted by a specialist supplier, and the M&E installed by our supply chain - both communicating effectively to ensure the gas an electrical feed was correctly positions and ready in time for the fitout.

Coordinating over two site with our supply chain required careful planning, ensuring that everyone could commit to the projected programme.

Both labs were completed, and the flooring, ceiling and decoration done before the return of the student.  

Sports Lounge Refurbishment, Rhos on Sea Campus. OBR Construction were awarded this project during late June 2023 to deliver specific internal demolitions and alterations to existing spaces to provide state of the art, sustainable changing rooms, toilets and shower facilities for the College. The Principal Designers and Contract Administrators were SP Project Ltd who were appointed by the Client, Grŵp Glynllifon Menai. 

Initially let as an eight week project, some challenging aspects were encountered during the build which had to be delivered within a live building environment with work areas delineated and secured for the health and safety of all concerned. The Student Lounge at the Penrhyn Building forms part of the Rhos on Sea Campus and was located at the front of the Campus adjacent to several buildings. The Client’s core business activities (teaching) continued throughout the project and was not be disrupted. OBR Construction, having acquired past experience of delivering within such live environments, recognised and implemented measures from the outset to mitigate any potential issues caused by excessive noise or material movements in and out of working areas and these included daily informal briefs between the Campus’s Manager and our On-site Supervisor to discuss the day’s activities and movements, noisy activities so that all interested or affected parties remained informed and could make alternative arrangements. 

The works commenced by the demolition of internal walls to form the new larger spaces within the new changing rooms and showering facilities. This had fire compartmentalization implications which had to be managed; in addition some known asbestos had to be removed by specialist licensed contractors before OBR could then commence on the re-routing of underground drainage runs within the building which had to be modified to accommodate the proposed new layout for the changing rooms, showers and toilet facilities. This latter activity involved the breaking out of the reinforced concrete base slab, forming trenches, installing new foul drain runs with inlet pop-ups formed as required  

Demolition of Bangor Campus. As the college moved from their site in upper Bangor to Llangefni, the old campus buildings were demolished. This required OBR to first soft strip the internals of the building, including all asbestos material. Remove the mechanical and electrical system, and then all non structural walls and segregate into the various waste streams. This would reduce the waste that would end up in landfill, and maximise the recycling of material.

The main structure was demolished by non-explosive means, meaning we used large plant to meticulously start from the roof, nibbling away and demolishing the building section by section. The structural concrete superstructure and brick facade was processed on site with large crushers and transported off site for re-use. The steel reinforcements were segregated from the concrete, and recycled with local metal merchants.  

The site location was in close proximity to a school, residential housing and university buildings, therefore we had to ensure that the site boundary was maintained to keep all non-project workers out, implemented dust suppression measures such as mist cannons and pre-wetting, sound dampening techniques and timing to not clash with school hours, and considerate planning with transport of material to not clash with the daily school runs.   

Engineering Centre, Llangefni. OBR were involved in the construction of the new engineering centre, supplying the roof and groundworks package for the carpark. Later on, OBR were tasked with repurposing the large workshop area and install a steel frame mezzanine floor to allow a new classroom to be built on the 1st floor. As the workshop had large machines and tooling already installed, we had to work around these and the steel frame was designed and manufactured in shorter lengths, spliced together on site to allow us to achieve this goal.

As a classroom would be built on top of a loud workshop, the void between the workshop ceiling and classroom floor would be heavily acoustically insulated.
Once the mezzanine was installed, the M&E systems needed to be updated to allow the workshop to still have their ventilation system working, while also offering the AC to the classrooms.
New doorways and windows were placed in internal and external walls at the 1st floor to allow natural light and access to the new classroom.
The new classroom was constructed and all finishes completed by our supply chain.