Waterproofing an Exclusive Residents’ Club, London

Located in Earls Court, London, the Lillie Square development will eventually stretch from Chelsea football ground to Kensington Olympia, and comprises of over 800 multi-million pound luxury dwellings. The development will also contain London’s largest private residents’ club, which boasts a lounge, library, private dining room, cinema, gym, spa facilities and 20 metre swimming pool with jacuzzi.

Lillie Square Phase 1 required the formation of a watertight basement to house the luxury private residents club serving the entire property development. A large portion of this luxury clubhouse, including a swimming pool, spa, sauna, steam room, gym and function room, is below ground. The project therefore required robust waterproofing to protect the internal environment.

Newton Specialist Contractor Stonehosue were consulted at an early stage to be part of the design team and provide a guaranteed waterproofing solution that would comply with the requirements of both BS 8102:2009 and any third-party warranty providers.

The long-term partnership between Newton Waterproofing Systems and experienced Specialist Contractor Stonehouse has seen both companies partner on a vast portfolio of properties across the UK, and Stonehouse brought this experience to the table at Lillie Square.

In order to provide the maximum level of protection, Stonehouse combined two Types of waterproofing in order to achieve a completely dry ‘Grade 3’ internal environment as per the recommendations of BS 8102:2009.

The first of these products was the Type A, cementitious, liquid-applied waterproofing membrane Newton 107F, which was particularly suitable to this large-scale project due to the fact that it could be quickly spray-applied over large areas.

The 107F was supported by the Type C Newton CDM System cavity drain waterproofing, installed throughout the basement area of the clubhouse, with four Titan-Pro sump chambers containing dual NP400 pumps, as well as Newton High Water Alarms, Inverters and Battery Back-Up protection creating a truly failsafe system.

By working with Sir Robert McAlpine at the design stage it was possible to consider the lifetime performance of the structure as well as the cost in order to design and install thorough waterproofing protection.