FEATURE BOND STREET STATION
No one travelling through central London over the last couple of years can have failed to notice that something big is going on, as the preparations for Crossrail continue apace. Connecting far-flung destinations east and west of the capital, Crossrail is a brand-new, 118.5km railway right through the heart of London, the largest single addition to its transport network for more than half a century.
BOND
WSP is the lead designer on Bond Street station, one of the most central and complex stops. Crossrail is currently Europe’s largest infrastructure project, and even though Bond Street is just one of eight new underground stations, it is a very significant project in its own right.
The already dramatic changes at street level are nothing compared to the furious activity that has been going on under the ground – and in several very large offices where the entire project team has been colocated throughout a mammoth design effort. More than 150 WSP and sub-consultant staff have collaborated on the project since 2009, working side-by-side with the client, fellow consultants and contractors.
WSP has provided architectural, civil, structural, geotechnical, fire, building services design, pedestrian modelling, quantity surveying, construction planning and scheduling, town planning, environmental management, acoustics, traffic management, utilities diversions, sustainability design and project management. “As the station designer, we’re designing everything to do with the station,” explains technical director Simon Regan. “The project itself consists of two large station boxes, connected by 250m of platform – that’s the equivalent of three football pitches. The platform tunnels are the
AMBITION
height of two double-decker buses, and each station box is five storeys high, 30m below the ground. It’s much bigger than a tube train – Crossrail is a full-blown overground train with overhead electrification that happens to go underground.”
As well as interfaces with the underground station and the tunnel itself, WSP has been coordinating plans for the station with two developments over the ticket halls, by developers Grosvenor and Great Portland Estates. The eastern hall emerges in Hanover Square, the western hall in Davies Street – both in the heart of Mayfair and among London’s most prestigious addresses.
“Both sites are heavily constrained so we’ve had to coordinate many internal technical interfaces and external stakeholders,” says Tim Peet, senior technical director at WSP and lead engineer with overall responsibility for the design team. “This includes accommodating frequent design changes to enhance the overall construction programme, ongoing planning applications and developing plans to minimise disruption and noise.”
WSP was appointed to develop the architectural plans into something detailed and buildable, and the team’s first job was to validate the employer’s design. In fact, the eastern ticket hall has since been designed
three times from first principles – once to ensure it met the legal requirements of the Crossrail Act, a second time when Great Portland Estates decided to create an overall masterplan for the development above to better interface with the station, and a third to accommodate a more efficient construction programme proposed by the tunnelling contractor. “Each has been to the benefit of the project, resulting in a station that is better integrated into the local area and more cost-effective to build,” says Regan.
It did, however, put enormous pressure on the WSP team to complete the designs without holding up the overall programme. “We had to accelerate significantly, and our team worked a lot of sustained overtime over a six-month period. We have done everything we could to mitigate the delay so that everything is ready when the tunnel boring machines arrive. We agreed accelerated dates and we’ve met them all.”
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