Battersea Development in London City

Construction is underway on a new residential complex with 866 apartments in the shadow of the historic Battersea Power Station in central London.

This part is Phase 1 of an extensive development project on 40 acres around the station, which itself is being refurbished. Byrne Bros. Formwork chose the MEVA guided climbing system MGC to construct the two circular staircases and four lift shafts.

Unusually shaped stair cores with class B concrete finish

The unusual shape of the stair cores and the requirement of a class B finish led MEVA to provide a purpose-built shutter using the Rundfix circular formwork combined with alkus facing. The shutter’s internal radius was just 2.3 m, so using system formwork was no option. The all-plastic facing alkus is ideal when a top concrete finish is required. It is rolled like steel but is lighter and more flexible, allowing customer requirements to be matched exactly.

Minimum crane time: Only 90 min. for a lift from floor-to-floor

Byrne Bros. Formwork selected MEVA’s guided climbing system MGC, which provides a safe working environment. It also reducess crane time to only 90 minutes for a lift from floor to floor. Platforms and formwork connections are very robust and fully adjustable, allowing the specified tolerances to be kept accurately. The MGC, combined with MEVA’s flagship system Mammut 350, needs only a single 3.5 m x 2.5 m panel from ground to roof for fast pours up to 100kN/m².

Circular formwork system Radius

During planning, it was quickly agreed to combine lift shaft and stair riser in one unit to save time and resources and to speed up the cycles. The MEVA Rundfix was combined with the Radius system, whose panel heights match those of the Mammut 350. Aligning ties and joints is simple, further speeding up the climbing process.

Planning and design with MEVA expertise helps speed up workflow

MEVA worked extensively with Byrne Bros. Formwork to match planning, design and delivery to the site’s requirements. On MEVA’s advice, Byrne Bros. chose the pre-assembly method, assembling all platforms and main components outside the critical path. Thus the site was ready to climb within 2 days after the first pour. By working outside the main construction site, Byrne Bros. were able to work at ground level throughout. The assembly of the finished platforms is then very simple, requiring very little crane time.