Glasgow Harbour Phase 2 (GH20)

The second phase of the Glasgow Harbour residential quarter on the north bank of the Clyde in the West End of the city was developed by Dandara and subsequently blended GH20.

GMAD Architects’ concept design developed on a series of 5 towers and 3 linear blocks up to a maximum 22 storeys, perched on a two-storey basement car park, covered by a podium deck, that extends across the entire site footprint.

The nature of the development and the site presented several major engineering challenges for Woolgar Hunter to resolve.
The first of these was the requirement to excavate and retain a double basement directly adjacent to and below the water level of the River Clyde. Working closely with the piling specialist Bachy Soletanche, a unique piled wall solution wall developed for the site. This was based on Bachy’s ‘Dublin Wall’ which was effectively a hybrid between a bentonite slurry diaphragm wall and a contiguous piled wall. This design places concrete piles within a slurry trench located only where required to resist the vertical or horizontal loads. As such it offered a high cost effective solution.

The building superstructures were constructed over several phases. The structural solution adopted by Woolgar Hunter for these relatively high buildings was to utilise concrete frame technology. Post-tensioned at slabs minimise the structural floor zone to only 220mm. High strength concrete was used in the columns on walls to minimise their dimensions, which were coordinated with the architect to ‘disappear’ within partition walls.