Engineering Tower, University of Liverpool

This was a combined use building containing 11 floors of offices and 5 double height floors of engineering laboratories and lecture theatres. The structure was of steel framed construction, with insitu RC floors, stabilised by the stiffness of the beam / column joints.

Demolition was severely constrained by the location of the building, which had Brownlow Hill (a main arterial road, with Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral directly opposite) on one side and the main railway line into Liverpool Lime Street Station in a cut on the other side.

The lowest 3 stories (below the podum level shown on the photographs) were to be retained, with existing aerospace laboratories etc kept intact. This required:

  • Design and installation of protection and waterproofing at the lowest demolition level, to allow the levels below our works to remain intact and operational.
  • Design and installation of a bridging system to transfer the weight of the perimeter scaffold back to main support column locations below (due to load restrictions on the retained low level roof areas).
  • Extensive structural survey, temporary works design / assessments to allow level by level demolition using mini excavators / skid steer loaders etc to operate on the floors being demolished.
  • Extensive planning and design works to allow installation and operation of tower crane close to the railway cut.

The structure was demolished level by level from the top down, with debris bering removed partly via crane and partly via existing service openings in each floor, which were framed out and lined to form an efficient debris chute.

 

 

This project was undertaken as part of the University of Liverpool Engineering Restructuring Project, a major  redevelopment of the existing university facilities.

The overall project was undertaken by Messrs BAM Construction, for whom we were the the strip out, temporary works/structural alteration and demolition partner. Our works included:

Accreditations