Constructing the 61-storey residential tower ‘Newfoundland’ is a challenging project. The building site is located at the western end of the Canary Wharf Estate, bound by a dock on one side and three busy roads on the others, leaving no space for storage of construction materials. Building a tower under these circumstances demands excellent cooperation between the different trade contractors along with excellent logistics and planning.
Technical challenge
The narrow footprint of the site posed a unique engineering challenge. Support columns for buildings of this size are usually large in cross sectional area, reducing the net lettable area. But in this case, weight distribution was even more important because of the unique ground conditions: the tower is constructed directly above the Jubilee line tunnels. These limitations largely influenced the design of the building. The steel exo-skeleton structure provides 90 percent of the structural support. The load is transferred to the ground through its visually striking diagrid structure. At the bottom of the tower the mega grid distributes the load evenly between and on either side of the Jubilee line tunnels. When completed Newfoundland will offer its residents breathtaking views over London.
Unique steel construction
Hollandia is responsible for the detail design, fabrication, transport and erection of this unique steel structure. They also engineered a solution to continuously support the relatively light concrete core during the construction process: an innovative way of constructing the steel frame four floors at a time.
Construction in 4 steps of 4 floors simultaneously
The diagrid consists of diagonal steel beams over the entire height of the building, forming a diagrid structure. The steel beams connect every four floors to form half a diamond. Here the outer frame is connected to the core via nodes and a precast concrete floor. While post-tensioned concrete floors are installed on the three intermittent levels, the following four levels of steel diagrid structure is erected.