Laing O'Rourke (Scotland) Ltd - 24/03/2006 - 01/11/2006

Franborough House Bothwell St, Glasgow

The Challenge

Laing O'Rourke (Scotland) Ltd had successfully won a prestigous building project for a state of the art office block; to enable this an existing 30m high 1960's office block required demolition.  The building being in the city centre on a confirned site fronting onto Bothwell Street linked to the exit of the M8 Motorway; the highways would not allow any lane closures.  In the spirit of CDM everyone wished to avoid any unnecessary risks, however without being able to close the road it was doubtful that the building could be demolished remotely; this potentially required persons working at height whilst demolition was done floor by floor.

My Solution

The tendering demolition contractors submitted proposed various approaches, therefore I was requested to visit site to give an opinion on an appropriate way forward.  I suggested that the demolition code of practice (BS6187: 2000) encouraged remote demolition where feasible and that we should carry out some trials to check if the available exclusion zone was sufficient to allow this.  In liaison with the regulators I designed trials to be carried out utilising physical barriers to compensate for the limited space at the rear of the property to check several parameters:

1. Exclusion zone needed cf actual available
2. How the building reacted under demolition
3. How barriers could reduce the exclusion zone

The Result

It was found that by incorporating a pedestrian tunnel into the physical barriers this provided sufficient space for the exclusion zone.  The resultant successful outcomes proved that the building could be demolished remotely with no debris breaches of these barriers.

My/Our Comments

Besides the safety aspects other benefits included:

1. All remote demolition achieved using high reach excavators
2. Regulators were pleased with the approach & the results
3. Saved 4 weeks on the programme