Projects
Industrial
Tipping Hall, Stratford, London, E15
“Waste not, want not” was certainly practised and preached by our Client having salvaged the steel portal frame and sundry items including the cladding from a tipping hall elsewhere in the country that had ceased operations. The Client did not take the trouble to survey the layout and structural arrangements and elevations of the framework before dismantling it so THe Consultants had the painstaking task of identifying how the frame formerly stood.
Proof of the existing steelwork sections was simple enough to analyse and justify. Forethought of guidance for the steelwork erector was communicated in our detailed fabrication drawings since some of the steelwork had suffered distortion and damage during the dismantling and handling and transportation to its new home, necessitating on-site replacement and strengthening of certain baseplates, flanges, and gussets, and replacement of purlins and cladding-rails.
Site investigation by the geotechnical specialist revealed a history of fly-tipping to a very considerable depth therefore piled foundations were recommended. A thick reinforced concrete suspended ground-slab was designed and detailed to support the waste-laden tipper-lorries, with an integral 5m high reinforced concrete ‘push-wall’ to retain the stockpiled waste and resist lateral forces applied by mechanised plant that frequently scoop up the waste from surface of the ground-slab.
Apart from the relative pristine condition of the push walls and slab, the first day of operation of the tipping-hall gave the impression that it had been in service for a long time. Functionality and not aesthetics is the key requirement of the Client, and this was an interesting yet logical outlook for us, rightly appropriate to the nature of their business.