Our Projects: Urban Splash Build

Urban Splash Build

Chips Building, Manchester - 2006-2008: Our Contract Value £6,500,000

The Chips Building is a mix of apartments and leisure areas set adjacent to Ashton Canals.

The building represents 3 wiggly chips stacked one upon another wrapped in newspaper.

Our contract was split into two packages.

Substructure

Basement car park. This involved the excavtion between sheet piled walls below the level of the adjacent canals.  The excavation had to be completed whilst maintaining the structual integrity of the sheet piled walls.  All the excavated material had to be logged and deposited in fill areas within the scheme that could be identified at a later date.  The basement slab was constructed on a series of pile caps on a volclay waterproof system that tanked the whole basement.  The lift shafts, stair cores and reinforced concrete columns for the building were constructed to form the basement lid and the level 00 for the apartment block.t

Superstucture

Nine storey reinforced concrete frame, levels 3 to 6 cantilevering from the 3rd level.  Each floor is layered offset to each other to form an irregular outline to the building.  The 13.5m cantilevered section (longest in the North West) has been designed to deflect up to 85mm over the life time of the building.  It was temporarily propped using a shoring and jacking system during construction.

We utilised two tower cranes and various sized mobile concrete pumps including a 63m - one of the largest in the United Kingdom.

Structural Engineer: Martin Stockley Associates