One of Birmingham’s most desirable city business addresses is about to receive a glamorous makeover with the redevelopment of 103 Colmore Row.
The existing 26-storey building originally designed by city architect John Madin in 1970 has lain empty for nearly 15 years and the job of demolishing one of Birmingham’s tallest buildings in such a sensitive and busy area has been awarded to H Smith Engineers Ltd.
The new 26-storey building has been designed by London-based architects Doone Silver and will be a steel, aluminum and glazed structure. It will have a terrace on the 18th floor for the exclusive use of the tenant and as the tallest building in the area will be a stunning landmark on Birmingham’s city skyline.
H Smith (Engineers) Ltd originally won the contract to take the building down to ground level and have recently tendered for additional works to remove the 4-storey basement car park. INMALO are pleased to have supplied Mantovanibenne (MBI) hydraulic attachments to achieve top down demolition floor by floor.
Work started early this year and the building has already been reduced to the 15th floor. Working in from the outer concrete walls, the walls are cut away in sections and lowered by crane to ground level where H Smith are using a 13t excavator to further crush the demolition waste prior to removal from site and recycling.
Work then begins on removing internal walls and working back into the core using two Komatsu PC80 (8t) excavators with hydraulic crackers and breakers The lift shafts within the core of the building provide a safe and reliable rubble shoot to clear waste to the basement for removal from site.
Inmalo have now supplied two MBI CR5 (600kg) Crackers, the latest arriving on site in May for use on a brand new Komatsu PC80MR excavator recently purchased by H Smith. Layout changes further down the building have provided more floor space so the addition of a second excavator will now speed up clearance of the remaining floors.
This was a good opportunity for Project Manager Nick Francis to evaluate which cracker he should invest in, for the new Komatsu PC80 Excavator.
“This is a major piece of kit which enables us to quickly reduce reinforced concrete walls to rubble and cut through the reinforced steel rebar, we need the equipment to be powerful and reliable. With several competitive products on site as well as an existing MBI CR5 Cracker we’ve been able to test each unit for cycle time, rotation accuracy, jaw opening and most importantly, power.
“The Inmalo MBI CR5 clearly out-performed the other products on site and we calculated that the MBI CR5 provided around 20% more power and met all our existing criteria. Whilst it’s not the cheapest attachment, the MBI CR5 performance easily outweighs the extra cost. For us, the additional productivity meant the CR5 gave best value for money, the most important consideration for us.”
Hydraulic rotation was essential on a job site with such a tight layout, therefore Mantovanibenne designed a new version of the CR5 Cracker with full 360° hydraulic rotation, specifically for H Smith (Engineers) Ltd. The new model was designed/manufactured/delivered within 5 weeks of order!
(It has now become a standard item in their range of products)