IKEA Superstore

Rolton were appointed by long term client IKEA for the development of a new store located in Reading, Berkshire.

The brownfield site has been redeveloped twice and consists of two parcels of land; the main store, lorry access, and yard are located on the northern parcel and a multi-storey car park occupies the southern parcel. The store includes sales and display areas, offices and a restaurant at ground floor and on a mezzanine, floor covering around two thirds of the footprint; the remaining part has warehouse racking for storage of goods.

Rolton provided civil, structural, and geotechnical services for this new store, conducting several duties including intrusive ground investigations, designing layouts on the surface water drainage system and developing further drainage plans. The team also established ground floor building levels and assessed soil conditions at the site.

To ensure that the materials proposed by IKEA were suitable in terms of economic structural performance, we provided design checks and also reported unexpected contamination found during site investigations at the site, as it is over a major aquifer. The project was the most environmentally efficient IKEA store in the UK at the time of development, including items such as SUDS, PV, ground source heat pumps and rainwater harvesting.