Team Manager John Callanan comments,
“It’s particularly pleasing to see the second
tower taking shape and it has been a
fruitful exercise working closely with the
Manchester team at Ramboll and Elland
Steel on both blocks.”
The project’s floor beams support metal
deck flooring, installed by SMD, and a
concrete topping forming a composite steel
design.
Internally, the building is not quite
column-free as there are five CHS columns,
installed to break up a span that would have
been more than 20m-long.
“Without these five columns, it would
not have been possible to follow and adopt
the same structural depth as the adjacent
Building 101,” explains Ramboll Senior
Structural Engineer Allan Wilson.
Offering some aesthetic appeal around
the exterior, all of the perimeter CHS
columns are set within a 900mm cantilever
and will be left exposed in the building’s
completed form. These sections are
406.4mm diameter columns at the lower
levels, decreasing to 323.9mm diameter
columns for the upper two storeys.
“The perimeter columns are not the
only elements to be left exposed,” adds Mr
Edwards “A client-driven decision means
the entire steel frame will be on show
in the completed building, along with
the underside of the floors and all of the
services, creating a modern industrial-like
office environment.”
Adding some more visual appeal to 100
Embankment, the structure’s perimeter
incorporates curves to follow the shape of
the listed retained façade of the podium,
and includes a 7m cantilevering prow on its
south western corner.
100 Embankment is due for practical
completion by June 2020.
Logistics challenge
12 NSC
June 19
Both 100 and 101 sit on an island
site, as the podium is surrounded by
roads, railway lines, the River Irwell
and a culvert.
Logistically, this is challenging when
it comes to bringing material to site, as
there is little or no room for temporary
storage and access routes are also limited.
Erecting the site’s tower crane
encompassed all of the project’s logistical
challenges, as the mobile crane needed to
erect it could not be positioned anywhere
near.
“When the first building was built,
the site had the adjacent vacant plot,”
explains BAM Senior Design Manager
Chris Edwards. “For this building we
had no room on site and the project’s
surrounding roads could not be used as
they are either bridges, and couldn’t take
the weight of the crane, or in the case of
near the cathedral, too close to historic
crypts.”
The solution was to use a 500t-capacity
mobile crane, positioned on the opposite
side of the River Irwell. This large crane
required a 150t-capacity slave crane to
erect it and had a reach of nearly 80m to
lift the tower crane’s elements into place.
A similar challenge is anticipated at the
end of the project when the tower crane
is dismantled. As it will be surrounded by
the completed steel frame, an even larger
mobile crane will be required to lift the
tower crane’s elements out and over 100
Embankment.
500t-capacity mobile
crane used to erect the
site's tower crane
A 7m-deep cantilever
adorns the south
western corner of the
building
Temporary steelwork
was installed to allow
the new ground floor
slab to be poured
Commercial
10
/Steel_construction_products#Decking_for_floors
/Steel_construction_products#Decking_for_floors
/Composite_construction
/Steel_construction_products#Structural_hollow_sections
/Visually_expressed_structural_forms
/Braced_frames
/Facades_and_interfaces#Facade_retention_in_building_renovation
/Residential_and_mixed-use_buildings#Podium_structures
/Construction#Tower_cranes
/Construction#Mobile_cranes
/Bridges