Commercial
One hundred and out Both buildings sit on a
10 NSC
June 19
The 100 Embankment building forms
the second and final phase of an
ambitious commercial development
set to reinvigorate an area where the
cities of Manchester and Salford meet.
Sat alongside its completed sister
building, 101 Embankment (see NSC June
2016), the nine-storey 100 structure will
offer 15,400m2 of BREEAM ‘Excellent’
Grade A office space.
Sat on the banks of the River Irwell,
overlooking Manchester Cathedral, both
buildings are situated on a plot once
occupied by Exchange Station that closed
down in 1969.
Although the original buildings and
platforms are long gone, the sandstone
façade of the masonry podium that once
supported the station has been retained. The
podium forms the exterior for a three-storey
car park on top of which the two office
blocks now sit.
The steel-framed car park infills most
of the retained façade, except the rounded
corner areas, creating 442 spaces. It was
erected as part of the initial phase, along
with building 101.
The roof of the car park or podium deck
initially presented the design team with the
project’s biggest challenge. Both of the office
buildings have a similar design that includes
main columns set at 7.5m centres, which
does not match the car park grid below.
The client’s requirement to maximise the
number of car parking spaces did not permit
either of the building cores to continue
down through the podium structure.
Therefore, steel-framed braced cores sat on
transfer structures positioned at podium
deck level have been adopted to minimise
the loads.
Encompassing an area around each
of the building’s cores, which equates to
approximately one third of their footprints,
the two transfer slabs have employed an
innovative design, with a 1,500mm thick RC
slab built off a 130mm thick composite slab
acting as permanent formwork.
The remainder of the podium slab is
170mm thick. In order to resolve complex
punching shear issues, 914UB cruciform
sections were cast within the depth of the
transfer slabs.
“During phase one, transfer beams
and a temporary slab were installed over
the area where building 100’s core would
sit,” explains BAM Construction Senior
Design Manager Chris Edwards. “When we
started on-site for phase two, we initially
had a 16-week enabling works programme,
which required us to take possession of the
car park’s top level, while we broke out the
temporary slab, and installed temporary
steelwork to enable the pouring of the new
1,500mm-thick slab.”
During the enabling works, steelwork
contractor Elland Steel Structures installed
more than 40t of temporary steelwork to
support the load of the wet concrete in the
temporary case.
Once these early works had been
completed and Elland Steel had removed the
temporary steelwork, it was able to begin its
main steelwork erection programme.
Building 100 is similar to its neighbour,
although it is one floor lower with a slightly
larger floorplate, which means it has
approximately the same lettable space.
The steel frame consists of CHS columns
supporting cellular beams offering clear
internal spans of up to 12m. The beams
are all 680mm-deep Westok members,
with 475mm diameter holes for service
integration.
Kloeckner Metals UK Westok first
became involved with the project in 2014
when it provided Elland Steel with a first
draft value engineered floor solution for the
first tower.
By adopting a mix of Westok cellular
beams at the office levels, and discrete
Westok plate beams at both office and
podium deck level, savings were realised.
Kloeckner Metals UK Westok Design
The second of two commercial buildings sat on a former
railway station podium in Salford is quickly taking shape.
Martin Cooper reports.
podium once occupied
by Exchange Station
FACT FILE
100 Embankment,
Salford
Main client:
Ask Real Estate
Architect:
Flanagan Lawrence
Main contractor:
BAM Construction
Structural engineer:
Ramboll
Steelwork contractor:
Elland Steel Structures
Steel tonnage: 1,800t
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/The_Embankment,_Salford
/BREEAM
/Residential_and_mixed-use_buildings#Podium_structures
/Car_parks
/Design
/Concept_design#Concrete_or_steel_cores
/Composite_construction#Composite_slabs
/Steel_section_sizes
/Construction#Temporary_works
/Construction#Steel_erection
/Steel_construction_products#Structural_hollow_sections
/Steel_construction_products#Cellular_beams
/Service_integration
/Service_integration
/Service_integration#Composite_beams_with_web_openings