REDI is Construction Site of the Year 2017
SRV GROUP PLC PRESS RELEASE 16 NOVEMBER 2017, AT 17.00
REDI is Construction Site of the Year 2017
The REDI construction site, implemented by SRV at Kalasatama, Helsinki, has been awarded first prize in Rakennuslehti magazine’s Construction Site of the Year 2017 competition. In assessing the site, attention was given to, for example, the scope of the project, site management and thereby ensuring good cooperation, information management, occupational health and safety, quality assurance, risk management and utilisation of data modelling.
It is the fourth time that the prize has been won by the duo leading the construction site, namely Site Manager Jukka Nikkola and Project Director Markku Muhonen, who retired from his position in October. “REDI is an exceptionally large urban site, but in construction the basic issues are always the same. In addition to professional skills, strong willpower and belief in what you are doing are required,” says Nikkola, SRV’s Site Manager on the REDI project.
The Construction Site of the Year award principally commends the shopping centre site, but in addition to the shopping and experience centre comprising 64,000 square metres of commercial premises, Finland’s tallest residential buildings will also be built at the REDI complex. The elevator shafts and stairwells of the residential towers have been built to the roof level of the shopping centre simultaneously with the shopping centre’s framework. Construction began in August 2011 with preparatory earth construction and excavation work. In August 2013, two major contracts were completed at the site: a waste station and the relocation of a metro bridge. Other construction work was halted in summer 2012 due to a city planning appeal. Construction work resumed in April 2015 with a significant earth construction phase, the excavation of a three-hectare pit, which lasted just over a year. During that time, a total of 900,000 cubic metres of material was removed from the site. During the entire excavation period, the metro operated normally, and blasting work was timed taking the busy metro timetable into account.
Before excavation began in the area, a significant bridge relocation task was completed, when a new section of bridge was built for the metro to replace track previously supported by bedrock. A new bridge deck was constructed so that bedrock could be excavated from underneath it.
The general public became aware of the REDI site in a concrete way when traffic on the Itäväylä highway was shifted at REDI onto a detour built to the south side of the route. This was done to enable bedrock beneath the Itäväylä highway to be excavated and removed. The Itäväylä highway was restored to its former location in September 2017, when the new roadway and bridge built to replace the excavated material were completed. The first concreting works, namely the casting of foundations, elevator shaft bases, electrical substations and driveways, began at the REDI site in autumn 2015.
REDI is Finland’s largest urban construction project and is also Finland’s largest 3D data modelling project. In a project of REDI’s size, the amount of planning and design material is huge. The data model includes plans for the shopping centre, eight residential towers and a parking facility as well as for the streets of area, public utility services, the metro station, underground support structures and bridges. The 3D model facilitates, for example, more detailed lists of materials and quantities, schedule preparation and higher quality construction site plans. “Quality is the number one issue nowadays. The production of good quality is based on planning and on ensuring that everything on the site is done according to plan,” explains Nikkola.
Creating a good atmosphere is an important part of site management. On the REDI site are working long-standing SRV professionals who have been involved in major construction projects before. One of them is Purchasing Manager Kirsi Weinreich, a member of the team that has won the Construction Site of the Year award for the fourth time. “A good atmosphere is very important. The good atmosphere and team spirit on the REDI site encourages very one of us to give 100% in our work and to believe in our common goal,” says Weinreich.
Building at a major transport intersection has presented particular challenges for site logistics. Everything has to take place precisely on schedule to ensure that loads are received in the correct order without disrupting the traffic passing around the site. There are also no storage areas on the site, so materials must be installed quickly.
The REDI construction site spreads out on both sides of the metro track. The passing of the metro across the site has also posed its own challenges for construction. No lifting could be done over the metro track, and some of the work stages, such as building a roof over the metro track, had to be scheduled for night time, when the metro does not operate.
The interior completion phase is now under way at the site. The REDI shopping centre will open its doors in autumn 2018.
https://www.srv.fi/en/site/redi
REDI, implemented by SRV at Kalasatama, Helsinki, will comprise the inner city’s largest shopping and experience centre as well as eight tower buildings. Below the centre will be a 2,000-space parking facility, usable by both the towers’ residents and the shopping centre’s customers. Construction work at REDI, Finland’s largest urban construction project, was launched in spring 2015 and is expected to continue until 2023. The REDI shopping centre as a whole will open in autumn 2018 and Majakka, the first of the tower buildings to be completed, will receive its first residents in spring 2019. The remaining tower buildings will be completed in stages by 2023. www.redi.fi/en/
For further information, please contact:
Heli Pulkkinen, Communications Specialist, REDI by SRV, tel. +358 50 411 0787, heli.pulkkinen@srv.fi
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