Riverlight, Battersea

The Solution

BoA worked closely with the clients engineers, Ramboll, at the pre-tender stage in order to assist in refining the initial engineering details into workable construction details. Following the completion of design stage, BoA successfully tendered and secured the contract to deliver the structural and architectural steelwork to Expanded Ltd, the concrete frame contractor. With the unique nature of the ‘Exoskelton’ construction, the building was required to be constructed with the individual floor levels becoming self-supporting through the external structure, once the floors had been poured. As such, the design called for specially fabricated ‘Node’ boxes, vertical and diagonal props which are post tensioned to take the load of the structure. Given the complexities of the installation sequence, BoA and Expanded had to work closely together to formulate a construction programme based on the requirements of the concrete pour, the steelwork installation and tensioning, whilst remaining within the tight confines of the clients overall build programme. With careful planning and constant communication, both teams were able to seamlessly co-ordinate to ensure that at no point throughout the build was any time lost due to delays in deliveries. The distinctive coloured balconies and props also presented BoA with a challenge in terms of the finishing system required, due to the sheer size of the components. Given the length of the props and the amount of welding required to the balcony trays, traditional ‘hot dip’ galvanising was not an option, so BoA developed a high volume production process involving manual shot blasting, Thermal Zinc Spraying and high quality wet spray paint finishes. The result of the new process was a high quality finish which gave all the ‘life to first maintenance’ warranties required by the client, as well as delivering the distinctive colours which are the signature of the Riverlight development.