BTS announces Northumbria University meeting

10 July 2019


Great Britain – The British Tunnelling Society (BTS) will hold an evening meeting at Northumbria University. The event will feature a talk on the topic: ‘Tunnelling Under 21st Century Building Structures: Bond Street Station Upgrade and the infamous case of Avon House’. Speakers will be Andy Clarke (for Costain Laing O’Rourke), Richard Totty (for Bachy) and Paul Perry (formerly of Halcrow Atkins JV.

Bond Street Station Upgrade was a complex project to extend the existing London Underground station with significant tunnelling and underground works to provide a new satellite ticket hall to the north of Oxford Street in London UK with an associated plethora of new passenger and station interchange tunnels. It was completed for Christmas 2017.

As is the norm, Building Damage Assessment was undertaken to ensure that appropriate action was considered to reduce the effect on the above ground buildings from the ground movements arising from tunnelling works below.

One of these buildings, known as Avon House, is a 1930’s steel framed building, altered over a number of years by the insertion of transfer beams in the upper floors to allow a more open space for this important Oxford Street Retail area. This then gathered the loads onto fewer columns, the very columns that tunnelling is required to extend the existing station underneath. The presentation will describe the scheme, the building damage assessment and the mitigation taken from three members of the project team.

The meeting is part of the society’s attempts to become less London-centric. BTS chair Ivor Thomas added, “The BTS has for some time been keen to start running evening meeting outside of London. I hope this meeting will be the first of a regular event for us.”

Details:
Venue: The Great Hall, Sutherland Building, Northumbria University, Newcastle, NE1 8JG
Date: 15 October 2019

Time:
5:30pm Tea & Coffee
6pm Meeting starts followed by Drinks & Buffet