Mann Island

Acting as consultant to the main structural engineer, Bingham Davies, our team undertook concept design and structural reviews for the challenging concrete framed buildings.

The project consists of two blocks reaching up to 14 storeys high. The blocks are of an angular form, designed to appear as solid masses hovering above the ground with the retail units as lightweight, transparent spaces. To enhance this effect, the upper levels of the superstructure cantilever out beyond the retail areas by up to 16m.

The structural design had a significant number of constraints, including the overall architectural form, column coordination between the various levels and usages, and window locations. The structural solution was developed to overcome these constraints included multi-storey shear walls and concrete Vierendeel truss sections, together with more traditional concrete walls, beams, columns, and slabs.

For the analysis of the structures, we undertook a powerful finite element analysis of each block as a single entity including taking account of creep effects, shrinkage, axial shortening and build sequencing.