Retained features
As the address implies, the project was once
occupied by six separate buildings, with 1, 2, and
3 demolished to create the space for the main sixstorey
NSC 17
February 18
architects keen to exploit the programme
and commercial benefits steelwork brings to
the table.
“At 1-6 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, we
worked closely with the engineer to provide
optimised pre-cambered beams, and we
also had to meet very stringent deflection
tolerances for the edge beams supporting
the cladding. We’re pleased Westoks ticked
all the boxes”.
Along the front riverside elevation, the
development incorporates two retained
features, a masonry arched entranceway and
a historic building dating back to the 1600s
see box.
New steelwork has been used to support
the entranceway, but essentially the main
steel frame does not touch either of these
two existing structures.
The entranceway will provide the
development with a grand access/exit point
and will lead into an open courtyard that
in turn leads to the main building entrance
lobby.
Perhaps the most stand-out feature of
the building is a protruding bullnose wing
that overlooks the main northern riverside
elevation. Jutting out adjacent the open
courtyard, the bullnose is the full height
of the building and will offer the lucky
occupants some excellent views up and
down the Liffey.
The upper floors step
back to create terraces
Faceted welded beams supported on
CHS columns form the bullnose point.
The feature 356mm-diameter tubular
columns then extend along the length of
the building’s perimeter elevations. As they
will remain exposed within the completed
scheme, they create another feature element
for the development.
Kiernan Structural Steel KSS has erected
the entire steel frame using the project’s two
tower cranes, with the only exception being
three bridges that span across the main
entrance lobby at floors three, four and five,
The steel bridges measure 250mm-deep ×
1,500mm-wide × 16.5m-long and each one
weighs almost 21.5t.
Brought to site as complete units, they
were too heavy for the tower crane’s capacity
and consequently another lifting solution
was required.
“Due to the ground conditions along the
river we were not able to support a mobile
crane, which would have been our preferred
option,” says KSS Managing Director John
Kiernan.
“We had to skid the bridges along the
ground floor slab and then lift them into
position using lifting beams built off the
fifth floor steelwork overhead and use a
pneumatic heavy duty chain block.”
1-6 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay is due to
complete in July 2018.
Commercial
The curved bullnose
feature
building.
A 14m-high arched brickwork entrance that once allowed
trains to enter the warehouse at number 2 is a listed element
that has been retained within the project.
This is now a free-standing structure, unconnected to the
project’s other structures.
In order to make the arched entrance self-supporting,
steelwork contractor Kiernan Structural Steel installed 80mmthick
plate girders around the inside of the façade, which were
then connected to universal column sections which are set
into the piled foundations.
Numbers 4 and 5 form another retained element of the
scheme. Dating back to 1680, these buildings once housed the
Docker’s Pub, once famous as a haunt of musicians, including
U2, when they were recording at the Windmill Lane studios
that formerly occupied a site to the rear of the project, and the
Merchant Seaman Society.
The old four-storey structure is being renovated and could
on completion be occupied by restaurants, or alternatively
they could be incorporated into the main scheme via a link.
Occupying a slither of land between the retained pub
building and an existing structure, number 6 has been
knocked down and is being rebuilt as a stepped four-storey
steel-framed building that will link into the main building.
/Building_envelopes
/Steel_construction_products#Structural_hollow_sections
/Construction#Steel_erection
/Bridges
/Construction#Mobile_cranes
/Construction#Mobile_cranes
/Steel_construction_products#Plate_girders
/Facades_and_interfaces
/Steel_construction_products#Standard_open_sections