Shard of Glass

The overall development, known as The London Bridge Quarter, comprises a total of approximately 1.6M sq ft of mixed-use space around London Bridge Station. The development will be in two buildings – the iconic Shard/London Bridge and the adjacent New London Bridge House, both of which have been designed by the internationally renowned architect Renzo Piano. Standing at 310m tall the 83 storey tower is the tallest building in Europe. The Shard of Glass and London Bridge House are located in close proximity to LUL’s London Bridge station and immediately adjacent to Network Rail’s mainline station. The schemes involve demolishing existing buildings and digging excavations in the order of 20m deep.

GCG were retained to undertake a fully independent check on these proposals in terms of the effect on LUL’s infrastructure which included ventilation shafts, escalator shafts, platform tunnels and running tunnels of different forms (segmental, cast in-situ, etc.). This involved numerical modelling of the temporary and permanent works schemes and required due consideration to be given to Network Rail’s London Bridge station assets.

On a separate contract, GCG advised Costain in relation to the construction of large diameter bored piles as part of the re-development of London Bridge station. As part of their work, GCG assessed the effects of pile construction on the brick arches supporting the station.