Waterproofing brunswick street student accommodation with SOPREMA

Soprema is very proud to be involved in waterproofing Brunswick Street Student Accommodation. In recent years, SOPREMA has been hard at work with architects and construction firms to provide Dublin’s student population with much-needed accommodation. The Brunswick Street Student Accommodation project significantly increases the supply of student housing in the city. Operated by the Global Student Accommodation (GSA), this site on North Brunswick Street comprises 21,000 m2 of student accommodation in the form of 571 en-suite rooms at the edge of the new TU Dublin Grangegorman campus. SOPREMA provided design support, install green roofs and build a podium slab for the site’s central courtyard.

Partners: MOLA Architecture and Bennett Construction

Working on the design with MOLA Architecture and with Bennett Construction as the main contractor, starting from a clean slate as all the buildings and warehouses that the site contained had been demolished to make way for the development. More specifically, the SOPREMA team was involved in the rainwater design, the drainage on the roof, the U-value and wind uplift calculations, and materials specification.

Landscaped courtyard with DUOFLEX waterproofing

We provided all the solutions required for the Brunswick Street Student Accommodation project, from green roofing (as requested by the Dublin City Council) to the waterproofing system for the podium slab of the central courtyard – an architectural element introduced to create an external connection between the building’s seven blocks. Due to the type of landscaping that was planned, waterproofing the courtyard proved quite a challenge. As a supermarket would be located below the podium we were not allowed to penetrate the slab. We opted for a DUOFLEX hot melt system that was perfectly suited to meet all parties’ needs thanks to its flexibility.

Expansive common areas

Works on the four to six storey development began in 2016 and were completed in 2018. The 571 student rooms that were constructed on the TU Dublin campus are just one aspect of Brunswick Street Student Accommodation, which also features a recreational facility (including a gym and cinema), seminar rooms and several retail units.