Case Study - Holliday Wharf Birmingham

As part of the redevelopment of Victorian warehouses into residential apartments, the retained façade needed to be isolated from its existing foundations, by installing a series of spring bearings in line in the wall. The permanent solution for this was to install a ‘Pynford beam along the length of the façade, and use pre-stressed spring bearings at designed centre’s to transfer the load back to the original footings. The grade II listed façade needed to be on isolation bearings due to the presence of a tunnel beneath which could cause vibrations.

Abbey Pynford installed specially designed ‘Pynford stools’ that were bolted together in 3 sections, to enable the central section to be removed and allow the support to be transferred to the spring bearings when required. A RC Pynford beam was constructed at ground level with a clear void beneath for the insertion of the spring bearings. The load from the beam was then transferred from the ‘Pynford stools’ to the spring bearings using hydraulic jacks to release the stools and facilitate the transfer.

As Dave Bell, Abbey Pynford’s Contracts Manager explains
“the most complicated part was to install the hydraulic jacks to take the load of the facade, and then transfer the load onto the spring bearings, all without lifting or lowering the façade. We used our Equilift system to monitor the movements, which we limited to 2mm. However, by carefully monitoring the pressure within the jacks, we were able watch the load transfer in terms of pressure changes”.