In a joint venture between Qatari Diar and the Canary Wharf Group, the iconic Southbank Place was developed into a mixed use 5.25-acre site. The historic 1950s building – and home of Shell Plc – was undergoing works to be converted into a huge modern location containing office space, residential areas, retail and leisure facilities.

Our role in this project was to strip out and remove all plant and associated pipework in the basement and sub-basement plant rooms while keeping the service up and running. To do so, the different teams worked sequentially, thus ensuring that the building’s facilities were maintained in working order with no interruptions to the client or residents.

Making use of our planning and forward-thinking approach, we overcame the obstacles derived from the scale and parameters of the project and successfully removed the plant despite weighing up to 2 tonnes at a time. Daily lifting plans were completed, each bespoke to the individual item of the plant removed on the day by specifically trained operatives. Included in the removal was up to 30’’ bore river water pipework, 4 no HWS boilers weighing over 1.5 tonnes each and 6 no Condenser units weighing over 1 tonne.

All works were completed without interruption to the client and under stringent health and safety practices, an achievement that drew praise from the client teams.