Around the Press: April 2010

Building Magazine
26 February 2010
The two-year rush hour
(Park Plaza Hotel) The answer is a huge truss that spans the width of the atrium from the second floor up to level 13. A Vierendeel truss was used as this has steel members set at 90 degrees, thereby allowing windows to be inserted. Each truss sits on two columns 32m apart on either side of the ballroom.

Construction News
11 March 2010
Past meets future in station upgrade
But a value engineering exercise alongside the client’s engineer saw that plan altered to the steel pile design that the Nuttall John Martin team is installing.

The Structural Engineer
16 February 2010
Unilever’s flying carpets
The geometrically complex ‘flying carpets’ hang in the central atrium, supported by duplex stainless steel rods that are engineered to withstand local fires. Innovative connection details were developed, with multidirectional adjustment capability. Vibration due to pedestrian activity was analysed, and an unusual central staircase arrangement ensured that the design achieves office quality responses on the floors.

New Civil Engineer
11 March 2010
Formula one fun
A central ring of columns around this funnel supports the main roof and these extend up and outwards as beams to the edge of the central section to form the main radial lines of support. They are supported at the outer edges on V-shaped columns and also halfway between the V columns and central columns by another line of columns that keep structural spans to around 75m.