Tellisford Mill - Nominated for LABC National Building Excellence Award

Tellisford Mill, near Bath, Somerset, which MLDE acted as Civil and Structural Engineers for, has been entered into the Local Authority Building Control, National Building Excellence Awards final. The awards ceremony will take place in London during November.

This follows on from the Regional Award received by the project in June 2012 in the LABC South West Building Excellence Awards in which Tellisford Mill won the “Best Small Commercial Building” Award.

The project, which involved the installation of a new 55kW micro-hydropower turbine producing clean, renewable energy and restoration of the mill to its original purpose incorporating contemporary accommodation/office spaces, also received four awards in Mendip District Council’s, Mendip Building Excellence Awards in March 2012.

Pegasus - Prince of Wales attends memorial dedication at the National Memorial Arboretum

The Prince of Wales was joined by hundreds of current and former paratroopers and guests to officially unveil sculptures at the National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire on 13 July 2012.

Prince Charles attended the ceremony at Alrewas to unveil the memorial which was sculpted by Charlie Langton and Mark Jackson. MLDE were commissioned to engineer the memorial plinth and the structural stainless steel armature to support Pegasus.





The memorial combines two bronze sculptures, a paratrooper, sculpted by Mark Jackson, standing alongside the winged horse Pegasus, ridden by Bellerophon, the official symbol of the Parachute Regiment, and is dedicated to the soldiers of the Parachute Regiment and associated airborne units. The sculptures were cast by Castle Fine Arts Foundry.

Tellisford Mill - Mendip Building Excellence Awards

MLDE were in attendance at Mendip District Council’s, Mendip Building Excellence Awards on Friday 16th March 2012, for the project Tellisford Mill which MLDE acted as Civil and Structural Engineers for. The results for this project were :

> Best Commercial Building Under £1 Million - Winner
> Best Extension or New Build in a Historic Context - Winner
> Best Sustainable Development - Finalist
> Best Vernacular Building - Finalist

The ambition of Clients, Rachel Feilden and Anthony Battersby (Founder members of Mendip Power Group) were realised with the installation of a new 55kW micro-hydropower turbine producing clean, renewable energy and restoration of the mill to its original purpose incorporating contemporary accommodation/office spaces.

The Architects for the project were Klaentschi and Klaentschi and construction was carried out by local contractor Randall of Beckington.

Aardman Animations HQ, Bristol - Feature Staircases

Aardman Animations new HQ, based in Bristol, has a feature article within Hot Dip Galvanizing Magazine.

MLDE designed and engineered a pair of new bowstring double flight feature staircases to provide a central focus to the atrium space. The building was designed by Alec French Architects for Aardman Animations.

Please refer to our website for more details of these elegant staircases.

Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas

MLDE would like to wish all their existing and new Clients a Happy New Year.

MLDE have carried out works to many Listed Buildings and properties in Conservation Areas, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, etc. and to reflect this a new page has been added to the website entitled Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas

An interactive Google Map has also been included on the page and we have begun to indicate some locations on this map of projects worked on by MLDE that are Listed or in Conservation Areas, with the intention of adding more to this over the next few weeks and completing the map.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

The team at Mark Lovell Design Engineers would like to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The office will be closed for the Christmas period but will be back on Tuesday 3rd January 2012.

Engineering – Autumn Statement

The global market runs world businesses, governed by global economics. The scant world resources, commodities and products naturally determine their own value and market size. The global market with subtle shifts in trends, skews the market allowing opportunities for different economies or new products to take a firmer hold of the sector. The current world economic model based on continual growth cannot function into the future, it is simply not sustainable. The current Western economies are faltering due to excessive debt caused by trying to create growth.

In the past few decades most global scale products were made in the lowest cost centres in the world, irrespective of the remoteness of the manufacturing plant. The actual transportation cost of the materials and consumables to and from the works and onwards to their markets has had little impact or influence on where they are actually made. This trend will become outdated as energy and resources become more expensive and difficult to find. More efficient local recycling of goods will also be needed in order to limit the unnecessary use of fuel and energy.

New highly sophisticated fabrication facilities will make a huge range of different mass produced products for different global brands from downloaded secure Cloud based information sources.

The design specification will be the critical intellectual property which Cloud technology will protect via safe direct non externally downloadable CadCam interfaces within the new generation of sophisticated Fabrication facilities. These facilities will be more evenly dispersed over the globe than the current production centres. Their density will increase as energy prices increase. The relentless world demand for internet and computers almost ensures that the predicted Cloud production will happen quite soon.

It is believed that about 9% of all the world energy is currently consumed by computers and the internet, albeit inclusive of the embodied energy of the systems and the power needed to run them! Regional economies will need to be re-established. The world needs joined up thinking by engaged joined up thinkers to create an holistic solution which actually works for mankind. A celestial alternative to spaceship earth is not an option for the majority of this planet.

Mark Lovell