The Shard – Legacy of innovation

London

Case Studies in Project Management - QUAL 11016

Course Name: MSc Project Management

Institute Name: University of The West of Scotland

Student Name: Erdem Gencbay

Student ID: B00660347

November 2021

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 Abstract

The Shard team commenced work in March 2009 at the heart of London’s economic center next to the
London Bridge Station. This Case study focused on the time period and innovative side of
construction and retaining within the established time period. In this regard, all stakeholders involve in
the project to work as an associate and some innovative thinking. This methodology a world first in a
tall construction industry and saved more than three months of construction timeframe and kept the
construction cost below £450m.

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 Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction ................................................................................................................................4

2.0 Stakeholders ................................................................................................................................4

3.0 Obstructions ................................................................................................................................5

4.0 Construction History ...................................................................................................................6

5.0 Project Management ...................................................................................................................6

6.0 Project Management Programmes ..............................................................................................7

7.0 Quality and Risk Management....................................................................................................8

8.0 Environmental Management ......................................................................................................9

9.0 Communication ........................................................................................................................10

10.0 Construction Methodology .......................................................................................................10

10.1 Top-Down Construction ..................................................................................................10

10.2 Jump-Lift .........................................................................................................................13

11.0 Collaboration.............................................................................................................................13

12.0 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................14

13.0 References .................................................................................................................................15

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 1.0 Introduction

The Shard is currently the seventh tallest skyscraper in Europe with tall at 306 meters, based on standard
height measurements, the measurement not including antenna masts (Wikipedia, 2021). The Shard was
built in the London Bridge Quarter, an old part of the city, as well as a major transportation center. The
proposed building and its engineering shape made a significant sense from an engineering point of view.
The construction of the Shard consists of hybrid concrete cores, composite floors and slab, and steel
structural elements. The Shard construction started in March 2009 and formally inaugurated in July
2012. Developed by Sellar Property Group as a 95 floors multi-use skyscraper, and designed by the
Italian architect, Renzo Piano. The Shard was designed as a new generation mix-use tower and as a
vertical city (Offices, Restaurants, Hotel and Residential). The Shard forced to build on a constrained
space, without affecting a major transport hub around (The Vision, 2021).

Initially, the project budget was a £350 million, but in October 2008 budget quickly increased to £435
million when the project’s scale approved (Therichest, 2021). The management of the project had
significant effort to the project ran extremely smoothly. In the end, the Shard project was completed on
time in July 2012 over 38 months, with the budget of £435.

“I am immensely proud that throughout the challenges, we remained true to the original vision of
creating a vertical city, with multiple and different occupiers. Today the Shard is a living, dynamic
building, full of energy, and a beacon for modern London.” (Irvine Sellar, the-shard, 2021).

2.0 Stakeholders

The Shard project key stakeholders are as bellow:

Sellar Property Group - Developer of the Shard project
Renzo Piano, The Shard’s main architect
Adamson Associates - Associate architect
Turner & Townsend - Project Management Consultant
WSP Group - Structural Engineering Consultant
Arup - M&E Engineering Consultant
Davis Langdon & Everest - Cost Consultant

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 Robert Bird Group - Construction Engineering Consultant
Mace – Main Contractor
Stent Foundations - Piling Contractor
Byrne Bros - Concrete Contractor
Scheldebouw - Cladding Contractor
Severfield Reeve Structures - Steelwork Contractor

3.0 Obstructions

The Shard development place were heavily obstructed by existing infrastructures which has had a serious
effect on the design of the underground construction. The site is located next to London Bridge Station,
where around 75 million people were passing over a year (Fig. 1). Also surrounding the site are
constructed the 19th century. All of these assets were sensitive to act that occurred during project
construction. The Shard team managed all these site constraints in an impressive way.

Fig. 1. Development land

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 4.0 Construction History
1999: Irvine Sellar decided to develop Southwark Tower, which was a 1970s style office building. The
local bodies were opposition the development idea. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott requested
government bodies to open an inquiry into the Sellar’s development plan (The Vision, 2021).

2000: Sellar discussed with Italian architect Renzo Piano in Berlin, and request him to create unique
multi-use skyscraper on the Southwark Tower site at hearth of London a place where society would
work, visit, live and enjoy themselves (The Vision, 2021).

2003: The Deputy Prime Minister announced that the design of The Shard had been approved (The
Vision, 2021).

2007: The developer bought the place from occupier and preparations started for demolition of
Southwark Tower (The Vision, 2021).

2008: After the financial depression in the European market, Qatari investors entered project in to
provide funds, and Southwark Tower demolition work started in April (The Vision, 2021).

2009: Demolition of Southwark Tower’s work completed, and construction started in March (The
Vision, 2021).

2010: The tower concrete core was raised continuously by approximately three meters a day. It had
become UK’s tallest building in November (The Vision, 2021).

2012: The Shard was its full height on March 30. The Shard is inaugurated with a ceremony in July with
attendance the Prime Minister of Qatar, and Prince Andrew, Duke of York (The Vision, 2021).

5.0 Project Management

Turner & Townsend started the Shard when project was just on a paper with the Directive model of
PMO. This added a great professionalism into the project, and it guaranteed a high level of harmony of
practice across the project. They worked closely with the developer to achieve a project’s commercial
and quality criteria. Turner & Townsend was the central coordinating team. Also, PMO had managed
skillfully all internal and external stakeholders, and installed over 900 monitoring points around the
project’s third-party property and a dashboard to keep external stakeholders informed. Turner &
Townsend expertly responded several challenges, offered innovative solutions, and managed over 700
legal obligations on behalf of developer (Turnerandtownsend, 2021).

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 With Turner & Townsend’s pioneering programme and project management role, they have achieved a
series of an innovative first for the UK and World construction sector.

- Top-down construction strategy provided an opportunity to continue simultaneously construction

work for both substructure and superstructure construction.

- Jump-lifting or self-climbing elevator system provided an alternative operational advantages instead

of external lifts.

- London’s largest continuous concrete pouring over 36 hours in very restrained area.

- The UK’s tallest crane operation at 255 meter high, sometimes operated under high-speed wind.

6.0 Project Management Programmes

The project construction firms Mace Group, WSP and ARUP decided to use advanced GEOBIM
software solution of the building information management (BIM) software for planning, designing and
construction of the project. With the BIM software program, the project productivity jumps up to higher
level, with help of 3D topographical surveys, 3D surrounding environment scanning by Total Station,
GPS, Laser scanning technologies and real-time 4D modelling to monitor how all elements of the project
are coherently each other. Using the BIM software, the Mace was able to assess and manage the
construction and logistic issues more efficiently (Fig. 2). The GEOBIM solution slightly improved
construction coordination and productivity (Gwprime.geospatialworld, 2021).

Fig. 2. Common GEOBIM solution structure.

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 Building Information Modeling (BIM) is an advanced knowledge domain within the Architecture,
Engineering, Construction and Operations (AECO) industries

BIM applications and discussions continue to increase in ability as more industries and national bodies
recognize its value-adding potential. This is evidenced by the accelerating emergence of guidelines
and major reports dedicated to exploring and defining the requirements and deliverables of BIM (Fig.
3) (Succar, B. 2009).

Fig. 3. Some common connotations of multiple BIM terms.

The project stakeholders have been using BIM software for several years expertly on construction
industry. BIM software helped project team to evaluate and manage construction and logistic issues
smoothly. Also, BIM visual scheduling and planning slightly increased the quality of the team
communication and collaboration among all stakeholders.

Also, the project visual planning was able to review which were fixed planning process before they
become expensive changes during construction stage. For example, as per the schedule the tower crane
installation has been scheduled too late into the project. Team early discovered this coordination gap; it
may delay the project.

The structural engineering consultant used Bentley’s structural software to optimize structural design of
the Shard. WSP had a great chance to create over thousand different structural models to evaluate right
structural model of the building. This enables to save time and construction cost and reduced structural
risks.

7.0 Quality and Risk Management

Quality was the significant goal throughout all phase of the project. Reaching a high-quality level was
essential to achieve team’s mission and vision. The Shard’s teamwork was greatly managed. The Shard
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 risk management plan was based on the principles of ensuring quality of work, ensuring quality of
materials, and recognizing the quality of the project.

The Shard was a complicated challenges that involved a lot of external stakeholders and confined
development space. The Shard location adjacent to one of the London’s busiest transport interchanges,
where daily around 300 thousand people were passing through London Bridge Station. A project this
scale was quote critical for safety and quality standards.

Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) experts, with their limitless knowledge of HSE prevention
during construction, worked within the project and 3rd party properties around the Shard project. This
included regular inspections to secure the HSE risk was kept to a low level till the fit out and up to
completion of the project.

Also, health and safety were played key impact in the success of the project delivering on-time. Project
management enforced good quality management by implementing the following with dynamic strategy
to ensure project success.

• Regular safety controls and inspections

• Continuous safety improvements,
• Safety sessions and trainings
• Specific high-rise induction programmes
• Incentive schemes were applied

8.0 Environmental Management

Environmental impact assessment and control were very important during both the demolition and
construction stages. Also, the local government bodies were following strictly the environmental
regulations.
The Temple company were provided the environmental management solutions over five years period.
Strictly construction site was monitoring 24/7 during construction period. This included the scope and
extend of monitoring and protection via ETAP (Environmental Trigger Action Plan). Temple provided
noise management and monitoring, and data for vibration and air quality. Also, provided real-time data
and data transparency to stakeholder group. There were no major disruptions was for the 3rd party
operations around the project (Templegroup, 2021).

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 9.0 Communication
The Shard project communication management was one of the most important aspects to complete it on
successful way from project planning to closeup period. Strong team communication was builds good
working relations, shared new ideas, best practices shared openly and the benefited to the project
stakeholders. Also, strong team communication skills and abilities helped team members to learn how
to manage disaccord in a positive way.

According to PMI’s authors conducted anonymous survey with a large of international professional
project managers in June 2007, appointed that which project performance factors are related to project
failures. Based on the survey outcomes shows that, 43% of project managers answered that project
Communication factors were a key role of project failure, while 42% replayed that project Process
factors were key roles and only 32% project managers responded that stakeholders were a key factor in
the failure (Pmi, 2021).

10.0 Construction Methodology

The building contractor Mace signed the project contract for the construction only with a budget of £350
million, after initial project study the project budget rapidly increased to £435 million when the scale of
project was approved in October 2008 (Therichest, 2021).

The construction of The Shard was almost cancelled because of the economic turmoil in the European
market. But a consortium of Qatari investors saved the project and paid over £150 million to acquire an
80% stake for the project, and after that the site works started (Therichest, 2021).

The Shard construction period was the tight timescale only 38 months, and project must open before the
London 2012 Summer Olympic game started. This meant the project management was pressurized to
rethink the basic principles of project management and use innovative techniques. Therewith, project
team used an innovative constriction idea which the first ever use of top-down construction for a core,
the UK’s ever largest continuous concrete pour, the UK’s first use of jump-lift, the first inclined hoist in
the World. To make the success truly innovative, the goal was to maximize prefabrication offsite and just
assembly it onsite due to the fact of the congested development space, limited timeframe and one of
London’s busiest transport hubs (Building, 2021).

10.1 Top-Down Construction

WSP’s team carefully reviewed a drawing of the original Southwark Towers, which was not
well scanned of a photocopy of a hand-drawn original in 1970s. Existing tower’s drawing
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 only enables the team to work out the position of the new piles. The risk was there was no
guarantee of the drawing scale accuracy, and the new piles had to be sensitively placed. But
during construction of new piles the WPS’s team was ready to redesign the foundation in case
any challenges for it (Building, 2021).

“Believe it or not, the positions were all spot on. We have a very constrained site. We had to
be quite careful about how to demolish the existing building, excavate down and control any
movement. At the same time, whatever we did had to be the fastest way of constructing the
building” says Kamran Moazami, director of WSP.

One of the innovative ideas was that top-down construction had been planned from the start
due to development place challenges. This method only enabled to save construction time, the
tower’s substructure and superstructure constructed parallelly, thereby saving over three
months off the construction time (Ingenia, 2021).

The three-level basement floor was built top-down construction method. Top-down
construction sequence meant pouring the ground floor slab first and continuing the ground
excavation below while the superstructure work above can grow (Building, 2021).

The top-down construction sequence was as follows:

- Construct the embedded retaining wall around the foundation/basement construction

place.

- Bearing piles were bored from ground level and steel beam columns installed in.

- The ground slab can be cast on a slip membrane structures.

- Proceed to first stage of excavation of basement floors #1.

- Then cast the first basement floor #1 slab, at the same time ground floor construction can
continue.

- After the completion of basement floor # 1 slab, resume the excavation bellow floors.

- This above explained process was continued till to reach tower’s raft foundation level.
Then construct the foundation slab and complete the lower basement floor.

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 The top-down construction method principles call for two main structural elements.
Underground columns and embedded retaining wall should be bear the construction load and
to utilize as part of the bracing system. Also, excavation bellow must be supported of
permanent retaining wall. A top-down construction design shall be allowed for the soil
excavation and removal, and the supply of materials.

The carefully designed and planned top-down method ensures that the construction of the sub-
structure and the core of the building structure are stable and safe at every stage of
construction. This innovative method top-down construction led to a three-month construction
time saving.

Over a thirty-six-hour period approximately 5,500 cubic meter of raft foundation concrete
poured in innovative way. Concrete contractor Byrne Bros, had to look very careful at the
concrete mix design, and he revealed that replacement of 75% of the cement with ground
granulated blast, which helps limit the amount of fresh concrete heat generation. These
concrete mix design replacements help to reduce the building’s carbon footprint. The concrete
was poured in layers 750 mm deep, this helped limit heat generation and next layers poured
early. A computer program was created to monitor concrete temperature changes, and
thermocouples were fixed to the reinforced concrete bars to measure heat movement.
According to heat reading the concrete mix design can be change at the batching plant if
needed (Building, 2021).

During the concrete purring, concrete mixers were arriving on site at every two-minute
periods. Used three concrete pumps were with a total up to 150 cubic meter concrete pumping
capacity an hour. This were coming from four different batching plants around the city. This
was distributed the risks. If one of the batching plants goes down only lose 25% of the
capacity. That is why three batching plants used instead of two. This way Byrne Bros had
reduced concrete pouring time and risks and pouring quality sharply increased. It was UK’s
ever largest concrete pouring activity. (Building, 2021).

The whole concrete pouring operation was scheduled for a weekend when the London’s traffic
was less and there was less concrete demand from other sites in the city (Building, 2021).

Throughout the basement floors excavation activity created more than 65,000 cubic meter
excavated soil, trucks were leaving the sites every 180 seconds. Contractor Mace was gained
a lot of experience on lorry movements (Building, 2021). “We worked out primary and
secondary routes for the trucks and planned it all in consultation with Southwark council and
all the major stakeholders.” says Tim Goldby, director of Mace.
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 10.2 Jump Lift

The UK’s first jump lift designed by Kone for the Shard project. Jump lift system improved
construction efficiency and speed. As well as it also greatly improving on-site logistics, safety
and it can operate in any weather conditions (Fig. 4). Currently five permanent Kone jump
lift are working at the Shard. Also, currently Kone Jump lift is protected by over 100 granted
patents or patent applications globally (Kone-major-projects, 2021).

How works jump lift: When construction has reached between the fifth and tenth floors, the
mobile machine room is installed, and the jump lift can start to use for few floors. As the new
floors added, Kone jump lift follows, with each jump it being served new floors (Kone-major-
projects, 2021).

Fig. 4. Overview of The Shard Jump-lift

“One of the biggest logistical challenges during any construction project is getting building
workers, materials, and goods to the right place at the right time – with maximum safety and
efficiency. The Shard faced these typical challenges and more. The size and design of the
building, combined with a small footprint in an already congested area of central London,
equaled a challenging construction schedule from the very beginning. This is where KONE
truly delivered with its innovative KONE JumpLift solution, maximizing efficiency,
productivity, and safety on site.“ (Michael Williams, Managing Director of KONE Great
Britain).

11.0 Collaboration
The project’s peak time were around 1,500 cross-discipline people was working, ranging from engineers
to technicians, plumbers to operators, drivers to security people. The legendary collaboration was a
challenge in itself. The big project were easy to get loss in project disciplines, but The Sard’s team
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 members were listening to each other’s concerns to find a better solution and moved on instead of having
an argument. Also, the Shard's collaborative team added a new perspective on for the UK's construction
industry, with together people of different backgrounds, different knowledge, different ideas,
experiences, and skills.

12.0 Conclusion
The Shard is a construction masterpiece in London. To make a project on such a tight place a tight
timeframe, with well-planned process and innovative architectural and structural engineering of the
Shard was fitted by the innovation brought to the construction methodology. Project management
allowed to save four months from the programme along with mitigating potential delay risks with the
new excavation methodology. The success of the Shard in terms of the high level of innovation and
cross-discipline communication.

The Shard’s innovative construction methodology archived to reduce cost, increased the construction
quality and slightly reduced project risks.

The “jump-start” methodology for the Shard won the Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE) London awards
2010 “Building award”.

The Shard was delivered on time with the 38 months construction timeline. Also, 125% over its planned
budget. The Shard’s innovative methodology enable to use for many new construction projects.

Currently, the Shard is the most beautiful architectural and engineering addition to the London image.

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 13.0 References
The-shard, (2021). The Vision. Available at: https://www.the-shard.com/about/ (Accessed: 03
November 2021).

The-shard, (2021). A Vertical City. Available at: https://www.the-shard.com/shard/a-vertical-city/

(Accessed: 03 November 2021).

Wsp, (2021). The Shard, London. Available at: https://www.wsp.com/en-SA/projects/the-shard

(Accessed: 03 November 2021).

Building, (2021). The Shard: Foot of the mountain. Available at:

https://www.building.co.uk/focus/the-shard-foot-of-the-mountain/3162661.article (Accessed: 04
November 2021).

Engineering-timelines, (2021). The Shard. Available at: http://www.engineering-

timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=1447 (Accessed: 04 November 2021).

Wikipedia, (2021). List of tallest buildings in Europe. Available at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Europe#Tallest_buildings (Accessed: 05
November 2021).

Therichest, (2021). The Shard, London: Cost of Europe’s Tallest Building. Available at:
https://www.therichest.com/technology/shard-london-bridge/ (Accessed: 05 November 2021).

Ingenia, (2021). Building the Shard. Available at: https://www.ingenia.org.uk/ingenia/issue-

52/building-the-shard (Accessed: 05 November 2021).

Pmi, (2021). Seven causes of project failure. Available at: https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/seven-

causes-project-failure-initiate-recovery-7195 (Accessed: 06 November 2021).

Turnerandtownsend, (2021). London Bridge Quarter - The Shard. Available at:

https://www.turnerandtownsend.com/en/projects/london-bridge-quarter-the-shard/ (Accessed: 06
November 2021).

Gwprime.geospatialworld, (2021). London’s Iconic Shard Tower Built Using GEOBIM Solutions.
Available at: https://www.gwprime.geospatialworld.net/case-study/londons-iconic-shard-tower-built-
using-geobim-solutions/ (Accessed: 07 November 2021).

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 Templegroup, (2021). The Shard. Available at: https://www.templegroup.co.uk/market_study/the-
shard/ (Accessed: 07 November 2021).

Kone-major-projects, (2021). Kone JumpLift. Available at: https://www.kone-major-

projects.com/high-rise-solutions/jumplift.aspx (Accessed: 08 November 2021).

Newcivilengineer, (2021). ICE London Awards 2010: Winners. Available at:

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/ice-london-awards-2010-winners-01-04-2010/ (Accessed: 08
November 2021).

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