Process
Pouring the foundations at Vantage Tower
Thirty-one hours, 2,400 cubic metres of concrete and one very long night on the quay. Notes from the biggest pour we have ever done.
Written by
Daan Kok
A tower on a quay starts below the water line. The raft foundation for Vantage Tower was poured in one continuous session to avoid a cold joint under the core.
Trucks arrived every four minutes from two plants on either side of the river. The site team worked in three shifts, and the pour finished at six in the morning, two hours ahead of plan.
What we would do again
Mock-up the reinforcement at full scale. Three weeks before the pour we built one bay on site, which showed that the bar spacing around the lift pits would not let the concrete through.