Manchester’s icon-in-waiting, the £73 million No.1 Spinningfields building, made its presence felt this week with an unprecedented concrete pour.
On Tuesday Allied London’s commercial office development witnessed 150 wagons arriving and successively pouring concrete to form the ‘core 1 base’ for the 24 storey structure.
Over 860 cubic metres was poured during the massive logistics exercise, the equivalent of 2150 tonnes when set.
Tony Grindrod, the construction director for BAM, said: “This may be the biggest single concrete pour BAM has ever done and it forms the base of the Core 1 structure that will support the 23 storey concrete core above along with the 60 concrete piles each passing down 20m into the bedrock below. Over the next few weeks a Slipform rig will be erected on site 26m by 20m in plan that will be used to form the core which is nearly 100m tall. The No1 Spinningfields project will gather pace in the new year when the structural steelwork starts to emerge from the basement and follow the concrete core up the building with a peak workforce of over 600 expected to be involved in the project at peak.
“After the Chinese President visited two of our recent buildings last week (Manchester City Football Academy and the National Graphene Institute), we feel BAM is delivering Manchester’s crown jewels of construction.”
Graham Skinner, Allied London’s Development Director said, “It is great to see that we are on schedule with the construction programme for No.1 Spinningfields, which will be a world-class commercial office building in one of Europe’s most successful regeneration developments. Allied London is delivering what will be the finest and highest specified business environment in Manchester with a rooftop bar, restaurant and terrace, a premium business lounge, innovative amenity and flexible fit-out options.”
Construction will take another leap forward next weekend when the tower crane is erected. Mr Grindrod added, “The crane will stand 117 metres tall, and after we’ve jumped it twice it will be 165 metres tall. The Hilton in Manchester is 169m tall, so that’s going to give the crane driver a majestic view across the City.”
Earlier this month the BAM-built National Graphene Institute won the Major Construction Project of the Year Award at the National Construction Awards.
