Constructing two reinforced concrete hulls for a couple of floating restaurants to be moored in Wood Wharf, Canary Wharf was always going to be a different but exciting challenge.
Canary Wharf Contractors had engaged Ramboll to design this fascinating and challenging concept in association with Glenn Howells Architects.
This recently developed, bustling area could never accommodate or facilitate the construction of this bold design insitu without significant disruption, cost, environmental, and time implications, and therefore an off-site build and transportation solution would have to be developed and implemented to provide safe and efficient delivery assurance.
Kilnbridge were awarded the contract to deliver this interesting and exciting project for one of our long-standing clients, Canary Wharf Contractors in autumn 2019.
The programme was very demanding from the outset, but then post contract award we were set an even more challenging target to deliver the structures six weeks earlier. The in-house Kilnbridge Design, Engineering and Planning teams undertook a rigorous review of the tabled plan and decided that concurrent construction of the watertight structures on land would be essential to deliver on our new, testing target date. This represented a significant departure from the originally planned sequential construction of the hulls on floating temporary structures on the water and brought about a 12-week time saving to the programme.
The Kilnbridge team secured some local land adjacent to King George V dock, directly adjacent to London City Airport, and set about constructing these c.1000T structures on above ground platforms on the dockside. This location, with the numerous restrictions to craneage associated with working directly beneath a low-level flight path, followed shortly after project commencement by the world stopping Covid 19 pandemic, brought about numerous challenges which called for exemplary communication and collaboration. The Kilnbridge team, including Engineering Director Ben White acting as Project Manager, Head of Design Alastair Courtney, Commercial Manager Tim Kenworthy and Construction Manager Brian Howard faced up to these challenges and set about resolving them by constructing the two hulls next to King George V dock and beneath approaching and departing London City Airport traffic. Subcontract and supply chain management was critical here, so the Kilnbridge team tirelessly managed this essential process with expert care and precision, under very trying circumstances because of the Covid 19 pandemic, to ensure that the dockside was prepared, and the huge reinforced concrete boxes were built and ready in time.
With the structures elevated on their above ground supporting platforms, and reinforced concrete roadways constructed below the hulls, the Self Propelled Modular Transporters (SPMTs) provided and managed by our specialist delivery partner, Mammoet, were driven on the roadways under the hulls, lifted up and driven off the edge of the dockside onto an awaiting semi-submersible floating barge, imported especially from Norway. This precise and delicate operation required expert buoyancy calculations and level control by means of multiple cells within the barge being drained or filled with water as the heavy structures transferred their mass from dry land to a floating foundation. This operation was expertly managed, controlled and executed by collaborative Kilnbridge and Mammoet team.
Kilnbridge and Mammoet were now operating in a marine environment, and by engaging and collaborating with marine equipment provider and experts Thamescraft, the team set about transporting these structures which could contain 24 double decker buses into an adjacent lock area to float them off and away from their transporting barges in a fully controllable environment. Following another superb performance which overcame some challenges, the now fully buoyant and floating reinforced concrete boxes were now ready to be fitted with their restaurant superstructures before undertaking their final journey along the River Thames to Canary Wharf under the control and guidance of tug boats.
The last leg of these mammoth floating concrete structures’ journey was quite a spectacle and something to behold. Floating through and past iconic structures such as the Thames Flood Barrier and the O2 Arena, beneath the raised and multiple award-winning WoodWharf Bridge, which Kilnbridge played a significant part in constructing in 2017, to be moored in the shadows of another Kilnbridge constructed high rise structure in this exciting London development area was the culmination of a multitude of unique challenges which were safely and expertly managed and successfully delivered by the multi-disciplinary Kilnbridge team to the satisfaction of its client.
Please follow the links for further, visual representation of this project
Kilnbridge dedicates the successful delivery of this project to our Commercial Manager Tim Kenworthy, who sadly and unexpectedly passed away following a short illness in 2020.
