THE SHARD FEATURE
The Tallest Tower: Building The Shard was produced by Prospect Pictures, part of the DCD Media Group
OF THE SHARDFACED A SERIES OF UNIQUE ENGINEERING CHALLENGES, AND PIONEEREDRADICAL TECHNIQUES NEVER SEEN BEFORE INTHE UK
THE CONSTRUCTION
EUROPE’S TALLEST TOWER HITS THE SMALL SCREEN
Structural engineers may play a very important role on building projects, but they’re not usually thrust into the limelight. When Channel 4 documentary “The Tallest Tower” revealed the extraordinary story of the construction of the Shard in London, WSP’s project team had the rare opportunity to relive the project’s highlights in front of an audience of millions.
Hamish McKenzie, Development Director, Sellar Group: “The typical normal way of building a building is to dig a big hole, put in the foundations and build it up from the bottom of the foundations to the top. It is the typical way, it’s the easiest way, and on a tall building it’s the slowest way.”
Narrator: “The slowest way is also the most costly. So the structural engineers develop an ingenious solution. They will build up and down at the same time. While one team excavates down to create the basement, another team simultaneously builds up the central core of the tower. Top-down is not a new procedure, but building a core in this way is.”
ARE BUILT FROM THE FOUNDATIONS UP. THE SHARD IS DIFFERENT
MOST SKYSCRAPERS
AS MUCH CONCRETE AS THEYWOULDNORMALLY POUR IN A DAY IN AN HOUR
THE TEAMMUST POUR
Narrator: “The constructors can only build upwards for as long as the steel supports that link the core to the foundation piles beneath it can take the weight of the ever-growing column of concrete. The team go for a broke with another first: the largest ever continuous concrete pour on a commercial building in the UK.”
Roma Agrawal, Senior Structural Engineer, WSP: “We had 21 floors of core, all built and ready, but they were still standing on steel stilts and the foundations weren’t done. In order to build up any higher, we needed to cast the 3m basement slab to spread the load out into the rest of the piles around the site.”
Narrator: “Normally as the building grows, work stops as the crane is reassembled and more sections are added to increase the height. But to reach even halfway up to the full final height of the Shard with an external free-standing crane would mean using as many as 25 heavy 6m sections. The engineers come up with an audacious solution. Inside the black box that is above the core, they install a crane, which sits in a special cradle connected to hydraulic jacks by steel rods. As the core is built, the hydraulic jacks push upwards, moving the crane with it. The crane is the only one of its kind in the UK to be suspended in this way.”
OUTSTANDING EXAMPLE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY ENGINEERING BEHIND THE SHARD
THE CRANE IS AN
Narrator: “In the luxury apartments on the upper floors, even a little sway is a little too much. In the Hat Truss, solid beams attach diagonally from the stiff concrete core of the Shard, to the perimeter columns. These transfer any movement away from the core, down the sides of the skyscraper, through the columns, and to the ground below.”
Roma Agrawal: “The Hat Truss is at level 67, and it controls the amount of sway in the building and how much it’s accelerating. It’s a bit like if you’re a skier and using ski poles, the poles help stabilise you. It’s what makes sure that if you’ve bought one of the expensive apartments at the top of the building, you don’t feel seasick.”
THE SWING
SWAY IN HIGH WINDS. SO THE ENGINEERS HAVE GONE THE EXTRA YARD TODAMPEN
TALL BUILDINGS
SOLUTIONS 15
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