Progress on the ground floor

The past week has seen excellent progress on the form work for the key suspended ground floor slab over the basement. This is a critical element in enabling all other ground floor slabs to be completed. Once this happens we will see the construction rising vertically at a much faster rate with the structure expected to reach its full height by June/July. The slab is quite complex due to level changes and the wonderful internal courtyard (see below) that has a combination of open grass, steps, raised seating and gardens. It is exciting to see the shape of the ground floor emerging.

There has also been good progress on the final pier caps and foundations that are necessary before the non-suspended ground floor slabs are poured.

Some key achievements in the last two weeks have included:

• The piers were completed last week.
• The western elevator pit was poured this week.
• The final bridging caps in the basement area were poured.
• Good progress has been made on the pile caps at the ground floor level.
• The ground floor suspended slab has progressed well and the first section was poured this week with more sections to come soon.
• The New College Big Top (see previous post) has largely been removed with the last of back filling taking place and some sand being trucked off site.
  

Progress on the ground floor