Blog

Scarborough Premier Inn Facade Revealed

22/9/2021

The new facade of the Scarborough Premier Inn extension, that Envisaged have been working on, was revealed recently when the scaffolding finally came down. Considering the second floor is new brick and stone it is a very good match to the existing masonry above and below. The rebuilt oriel bay tower looks amazing on the corner. Interior fitting out works and ground floor shopfronts are presently being finished. The hotel extension is due for completion over the next few months. It will comprise six floors and 90 bedrooms, with the top two floors being brand new Premier Inn Plus rooms.

covid 19 health and safety Advice for building sites

13/1/2021

The builder should undertake a risk assessment of the situation, including any concerns from workers and clients. It is vital that the risk involved in each job is assessed, and that key considerations around health and welfare are the primary concerns for any work you undertake.

Builders and clients should communicate as much as possible via phone, email and video call, in order to minimise face to face contact, including any signing of documents or provision of certificates.

Note that sharing mobile phones/tablets/pens etc may risk infection.

No work should be carried out in households which are self-isolating, are shielded, or are showing Coronavirus symptoms unless it is to remedy a direct risk to the household, such as emergency plumbing, heating or electrical repairs, or other safety risk, and where the tradesperson is willing to do so, taking all possible precautions.

No work should be carried out by any tradesperson who is showing Coronavirus symptoms, however mild.

Call ahead on the day to check that no one in the household has started to show symptoms of the virus, has been diagnosed or is self-isolating.

Remember not to shake hands, this is often instinctive.

If the part of the home that the builders are working in can be divided off from the rest of the house, leaving the clients in residence with sufficient kitchen and bathroom facilities, this will enable any emergency work to be carried out whilst still observing social distancing. Where this is not possible, residents should stay in a different room with the door closed.

The Government’s recommendation of keeping two metres apart should be applied stringently. Any time spent closer than two metres must be kept to an absolute minimum. Government has provided advice specifically for the construction sector.

Separate washing facilities and refreshment stations should also be arranged where possible.

Whilst on site, continue to follow the advice on frequent hand-washing when not wearing gloves, using hand sanitiser and not touching the face.

Tools must not be shared between workers. Under no circumstances should PPE, including facemasks be shared.

Workers should take their breaks separately, for example eating lunch in their own vehicles or well away from each other. Consider staggered break times.

Workers should not travel together to site in the same vehicle, and should avoid public transport. If this is not possible then they will not be able to work.

Use of personal protective equipment (PPE) such as facemasks, gloves and safety glasses, can be extended to cover all of the time on site, rather than only the time when they are necessary during dust-producing tasks for example. Disposable equipment should be used if at all possible. The HSE has issued advice on using PPE to avoid transmission of Coronavirus.

Good housekeeping and keeping a safe, tidy site is even more important than usual. Tools and equipment should be cleaned and disinfected, at the start and finish of any job, and all materials left tidily. There is information on the Government website about cleaning workspaces, but nothing specific to construction sites.

If at any time a worker on site feels unsafe, they should assess how to leave whatever they are working on in a safe state, contact their employer, and leave the site. Employers should make sure that any operatives going to a site to carry out emergency work are aware of this.

Any clothing worn on site should be changed as soon as you get home and washed so as not to harbour viruses. Any re-useable PPE (e.g. safety glasses) should be washed. Any wipes, disposable gloves etc should be bagged up and disposed of in accordance with local waste regulations.

new housing certification

22/10/2020

Envisaged have been very busy certifying several new housing schemes across the Yorkshire region and further afield, including growing business in London and it's surrounds. If you have an upcoming housing project that requires inspection and a Professional Consultant Certificate contact us now for a very competitive quote

final image for york house

19/9/2020

Here is the final view from the street that we produced for a new large York residence. We had produced images for this project a few years ago to help the client obtain planning approval. Due to various design changes, however, the client decided to submit a new planning application and asked us to revised the model and produce new images.

.... and here is the original image we did, for comparison ....

design images

16/9/2020

This month completed some low resolution renders of a large modern house in York to aid the client and architect with their design process and their choice of external materials

BURNISTON HOUSING development

15/1/2020

Envisaged are helping with an exciting new housing development in Burniston near Scarborough, about to go into planning in the near future, stay tuned ....

whitby apartments

24/9/2019

New luxury apartments with fantastic sea views are due to be completed next month. The project is located on Argyle Road near the town centre and seafront in Whitby.

Envisaged are proud to have carried out the detailed design, building control liaison, and construction production information for the design and build project.

The construction is steel frame with standard masonry construction to the bottom floor, timber frame and masonry to the top floors.

Most of the luxury two bed apartments have already been sold at a price of around £250,000 each.

Translucent Leaves

29/8/2019

One of the most important things to get right if you want a render to look convincing is having tree leaves act translucently.

A few years ago the only option for illustrators was to use photographs of real trees, inserted post-render using Photoshop, in order to get quality looking plants in their images due to the very large file size of such complex objects, and limitations in tree modelling.

Now, however, tree models are so convincing, can cast accurate, soft, shadows, with much faster computer rendering, that using complex models for trees and plants is the best way to create truly impressive and accurate images

When you buy trees and plants from a model store, however, you will often see that the leaves render obscurely - but when you look at real leaves with the sun behind them they get a lovely translucent green quality.

If you want to use tree models, and you want to recreate a translucent leaf effect, here is how I did it (3dsMax Mental Ray settings):

Use the arch and design material.
Set the diffuse map to the leaf you want to use with no reflection map with a white colour set to 0.3 reflect setting.
Use 0.3 glossiness and check the 'Highlights + FG only' button.
Use 0.95 transparency with a white colour + the leaf map - keep the leaf map bright.
Use an IOR of 1.
Set translucency to 0.95 (with no weight map) and a bright green colour (no leaf map).
Choose 'thin walled', use transparent shadows and backface cull in the advanced transparency options, don't use any bump maps.
Turn blur to 0.01 on all maps (this is required for any texture map).
In 'special purpose maps' use an opacity map for the leaf cutout map (black = clear, white = opaque) you can make this in Photoshop using the original leaf image you are using for the diffuse map.
In 'mental ray connection' use shadow map (deselect the lock) and use a translucency map. In surface material use a white colour with no map. For diffuse use the leaf map and a blue colour. In transparency use 0.5 + opacity map (black and white. Set FG quality for leaves, grass etc to 0.5 (50%).
Finally remember to deselect 'real world scale' on all maps and deselect filtering in all leaf maps as well for speed of rendering.

Note that this is only relevant for deciduous trees because conifers etc don't have noticeably translucent leaves - their needles are too thick.

These settings should create vibrant leaves with sunlight glowing through them, and even will cast a glowing shadow on the ground that will look far more realistic than simply obscure non-light transmitting leaves.

Scarborough Premier Inn

21/8/2019

Envisaged are proud to be helping with the development of a new Premier Inn hotel in Scarborough. The project involves the conversion of the old Scarborough Conservative Club on Huntriss Row into a new 90 bed five storey hotel to extend the existing Premier Inn hotel building. A whole new floor is to be added to the building, with the retained listed brick and stone facade, including the original oriel bay corner tower, extended in height. Construction is primarily using a metal lightweight frame, but with a steel and concrete structure to the front section of the hotel to help restrain the retained frontage. The project has started on site this month and expected to take one and half years to complete with a project value of around £6m.