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AED developed the structural concept for a competition entry for an Olympic gateway feature at Aldgate in London.
The site is densely packed with all possible service types. Thorough site investigation pinpoints the service tracks and enables positioning of tubular steel mono-piled foundations in the unoccupied zones.
Structural steel columns are bolted to the piles in a demountable fashion via pipe flange connections. These columns support a steelwork grid at high level. Non-structural columns hang from the grid, over the locations where the mono-piled foundations could not be accommodated. Their bases are restrained in position by engineered landscaping features and they are indistinguishable from the working columns. Half-height columns are then installed as landscaping features.
The incorporation of a spaceframe at high level gives great flexibility in terms of where structural and non-structural columns can be located, offsetting the problems caused by the number of services crossing the site.