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Building Progress Photo Gallery

September 2006

First floor columns are now visible on site.

Building reaching first floor level.

These series of photos below show the processes involved in pouring concrete on a very large scale, in this case the first floor.  Each floor of the building is very heavily re-inforced because of the length of the span of the supporting beams.  The re-inforcement is the solid, brown metal mesh on the floor. 

First floor re-inforcement          Pouring concrete into the first floor slab

The concrete is pumped up and poured into the mesh, the pipe being directed by hand.  As the concrete is poured, the mixture is vibrated to remove air pockets. 

 

Tamping the concrete level          Smoothing the concrete with a float

The concrete is then levelled out by "tamping" the surface with a wooden level.  When this is complete the surface is smoothed with a "float" for the final finish.

August 2006

 

   Ground floor facade in progress               View of west side of building showing ground floor

These images show the scaffolding and formwork for the concrete structure of the new building, at the front of the building adjacent to the Congress Theatre and the western, curved side.

 

   Image showing internal structure for preparing first floor slab              Image showing the large scale internal lift

These images show the propping structure for the production of the first floor.  The large scale nature of the lift car can be seen in comparison with the site foreman.  

July 2006

 

Photo showing column re-inforcement being lifted into place by the crane.                       Photo of ground floor with lift shaft formwork.

Completed concrete columns are wrapped in protective coverings.  This right hand image shows the ground floor columns with the lift shaft form work awaiting concrete.

View of construction site            View of internal columns

View of building's central 6 concrete columns            Construction of columns showing formwork

Central concrete columns have been cast using high specification formwork (the yellow boxes the concrete is poured into) to give a very smooth finish to the concrete surface.  The columns give an indication of the scale of the ground floor conference exhibition halls at 4.5m high.