Industrialization of construction projects

Specialist knowledge of precast connections and solutions

Consultancy and engineering firm WSP was called in to the Grote Beer project in Rotterdam because of its specialist knowledge of precast connections and solutions. This residential tower with 193 homes was built completely prefabricated.

WSP is a consulting firm in various fields and operates worldwide with 67,000 employees. Says project manager Robin van Gerwen, "We develop advisory services for clients with the key points: innovative, high-quality and sustainable. From various perspectives, we work on developing our advice to make it Future Ready, which means that it is in line with our sustainability and innovation program. Together with the client/contractor, architect Klunder Architects and structural engineer Kaskon, we integrated all the preconditions of prefabricated construction in this project."

'Prefabrication widely deployed '

At Grote Beer, it was determined at a very early stage that the building would be prefabricated. Because of the location of the building site, right next to Alexandrium, there was simply no room for traditional construction. WSP was at the table with various parties from the very beginning in order to set up the construction process efficiently and qualitatively. "We were able to integrate prefabricated solutions already in the design. This made implementation extra fast."

WSP's way of working fits nicely into the British MMC principle: Modern Methods of Construction. With this, the government in the United Kingdom encourages and mandates innovation in the construction sector. Van Gerwen: "Many benefits can be achieved by deploying innovations. For example, the management of waste streams, but also think of easier reuse of constructions and construction parts. Prefabrication has the potential to exploit these advantages to a large extent. Win-win situations are more easily achieved. With prefabrication, construction speed and the reduction of inconvenience to the environment quickly come out positively." 

Industrialization of construction projects

The residential tower is seventy meters high, and most of the construction time went into the bottom layer. This contains general areas and a commercial plinth. Because of the diversity of the required construction, more cast-in-place custom work comes into play here. Above that, construction is faster, Van Gerwen says. "Once we get into our rhythm, we can put away one floor a week casco. Then there will be another finishing stream on the inside of the building. The facades are already finished and glazed. This high construction speed runs through the entire chain. The W-installer, E-installer and finishers work one after the other, each on a different floor. No one has to wait for each other. This is really the industrialization of construction projects."

Van Gerwen is proud of the project, which has now reached its highest point. "As structural engineers, we really enjoy working on this project with Dura Vermeer and client Bestcon, who are both going for a high degree of prefabrication. We enjoyed working with all the teams. Each grabbed his role and the whole process was experienced as very pleasant by all parties."