International Finance Centre IFC6 building

Location:

The International Finance Centre is a prestigious complex of ultra-modern office buildings interspaced with public squares and amenities being constructed on St Helier’s waterfront.
Constructed in phases on land reclaimed from the sea in the 1980s, the planned six standalone buildings will eventually provide nearly 500,000 square feet of prime Grade A office space, along with extensive parking for cars and bikes.
Construction began in 2015, with the first building, IFC1, completed in 2017 and IFC5 completed in the following year.

Development:

IFC6 is the third of six office buildings planned for this landmark waterfront development, with work starting in late 2021 for a handover by end 2023.
Once complete, IFC6 will offer a total of 68,000 square feet of highly efficient office space across its five floors.
Services provided: BGR were contracted to provide all piling services for IFC6 development, which includes:
– 58 x 720mm diameter contiguous retaining wall piles installed at 900 centres using normal cased bored piling techniques to create a permanent structure alongside Victoria Avenue to the south, for the purpose of both preventing subsidence into the site and enabling excavation of the building basement.
– 100 linear metres of temporary works to create a so-called ‘Berlin Wall’ installation, requiring the sinking of King Post piles installed at 1.8m centres using normal cased bored piling techniques along the site’s west and part of the east elevations. Once installed, excavated bays between the King Posts were filled with wooden railway sleepers, both to prevent any risk of collapse and to permit the full evacuation of the building’s basement. This innovative approach provides a far more cost-effective temporary works solution.
132 x 720mm diameter foundation piles for the main construction, delivered using normal cased bored piling techniques to install the piles.

Services provided:

BGR were contracted to provide all piling services for IFC6 development, which includes:
58 x 720mm diameter contiguous retaining wall piles installed at 900 centres using normal cased bored piling techniques to create a permanent structure alongside Victoria Avenue to the south, for the purpose of both preventing subsidence into the site and enabling excavation of the building basement.
100 linear metres of temporary works to create a so-called ‘Berlin Wall’ installation, requiring the sinking of King Post piles installed at 1.8m centres using normal cased bored piling techniques along the site’s west and part of the east elevations. Once installed, excavated bays between the King Posts were filled with wooden railway sleepers, both to prevent any risk of collapse and to permit the full evacuation of the building’s basement. This innovative approach provides a far more cost-effective temporary works solution.
132 x 720mm diameter foundation piles for the main construction, delivered using normal cased bored piling techniques to install the piles.

Specialist techniques employed:

Carefully controlled operating processes allowed BGR’s rig operator using the cased bored system to install piles from ground level but terminate concrete installation just above the cut-off level, which was +/- 4 metres down. This led to a substantial reduction in the amount of concrete required and corresponding considerable financial savings for the client. 

BGR also debuted the use of a revolutionary 59-ton battery powered rotary drilling rig on the IFC6 development, one of only a handful of such machines in the world today. As well as being far more sustainable than traditional rigs, the Liebherr LB-16 Unplugged also operates at significantly lower noise levels than fossil fuel-powered equivalents.