York House – Nottingham

The demolition of multi storey, high rise buildings is bread and butter work for demolition companies, that is unless the building is built on top of the historic caves of Nottingham.
That was the problem facing our client CMEC demolition, meaning the heavy weight, high reach demolition machines could not be used to remove the highest levels of York House in the centre of Nottingham.
Having carried out some early demolition enabling works, EMMD Universal were called in to discuss an alternative method of demolishing the main building structure.

After lengthy discussions, EMDD Universal decided the best way to remove the concrete structure was using a mixture of 1ton and 2t electrically powered remote controlled Brokk demolition robots, with crushing or breaking attachments. The Brokk’s were able to move around on each level without over loading the floor slabs, carefully crushing and breaking out the reinforced concrete, beams columns and floor slabs, in a pre-determined sequence to maintain the stability of the building.

Our initial order on site was to carefully de-construct the roof top plant room, and remove the top 2no levels of the building, including 2no internal stair cores and lift shafts. In addition to restrictions with the caves below site, the building was adjacent to a neighbouring accommodation block, and a listed a listed building, as well as being surrounded by live pedestrian footways. Removing some 500m3 of concrete to each floor level in a two and half week period.

During the works the client was so impressed with the controlled method EMDD Universal were employing with the remote demolition machines that they requested EMDD Universal to reduce a further 2 no levels of the building

This would then allow them to demolish the remaining floors of the building using traditional demolition methods,
Due to the close proximity of the adjacent buildings we were further employed to de-construct parts of the building in these sensitive areas.

Finally EMDD Universal have since returned to site, to carry our diamond drilling works to allow the client to install perimeter hoarding on completion of the project.