Abstract:
The South Bank Place project comprised the redevelopment of the iconic Shell Corporation
headquarters in Waterloo, located on the Southbank of the River Thames in central London. The site
was originally developed in the 1950’s and due to the monitoring of the underlying Bakerloo Line
tunnels by the Building Research Station it has become a seminal case history for the long term swelling
behaviour of London Clay. The redevelopment, undertaken by a joint venture of Canary Wharf Group
and Qatari Diar, included demolition of the existing building (with the exception of the main towers)
retention of the existing basement structure and the construction of eight new mixed use buildings, up
to 31 storeys in height. The foundations for the new buildings varied according to the building height
and the below ground constraints. Two of the buildings are partially founded in reused under reamed
piles that were installed as part of the original 1950’s development. The paper describes the novel
methodology developed to assess the re-use of the under reamed piles which builds on the guidance
published by CIRIA and the BRE for straight shafted piles. The paper also describes the physical
investigations and numerical analyses undertaken as part of the assurance process and the procurement
of latent defect insurance by the client.