Demolition - St Hilliers

Site Name:

Millennium Hotel King Cross

Client:

St Hilliers

Overview:

Stripout, friable asbestos removal and structural demolition of a 36 storey former hotel being converted to apartments./p>

Summary:

The initial stage of this project was the completed for the owner of the building Kingsgate Investments which is a subsidiary of CDL Ltd which is a large international development company. This stage involved the complete strip out of the hotel from the roof to the basement and included the removal of all non-structural elements including ceilings, fittings and fixtures, floor finishes, all internal walls and all windows. This was complicated by the fact that all internal dividing walls had friable asbestos insulation between the wall and the concrete soffit. This asbestos required removal prior to demolition of the internal walls. To maximise the efficiency of the set up and removal of the asbestos the asbestos bubbles were set up over 3 storeys with a 1 storey buffer zone between the demolition works.

Following completion of the strip out works, Ross Mitchell and Associates was contracted by St Hilliers contracting to carry out the structural demolition works. This work involved the

• Demolition of the roof top and mezzanine plantrooms including removal of all plant
• Demolition of podium concrete pool
• Demolition of the two storey high roof top façade around the perimeter of the building
• Removal for refurbishment of the radio mast on the roof,
• Erection of a full scaffold around the building,
• Demolition of a concrete pedestrian bridge and 2 way concrete road bridge between two buildings – this also
required backpropping of the road for two levels underground to support the 200t mobile crane and excavators.
• The sawcutting and removal of over 300 precast concrete panels from the outside of the building to allow the installation over new balconies
• Cutting of numerous openings and penetrations throughout the full height of the structure.

The removal of the precast panels posed particularly challenging due to the unusual construction. Rather than being a bolt on precast panel, the panels were precast and then fixed in place using reinforcement and concrete. This required the panels to be sawcut to allow removal. The saw cuts not only had to be done very quickly to maximise efficiency and use of the tower crane but very accurately to ensure easy installation of the balconies.

Specialty:

Stripout, friable asbestos removal, working at heights, working with tower cranes, partial structural demolition