Skybridge will accommodate swaying of connected towers at Toronto’s downtown waterfront
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Very large” expansion joints and bearings where it connects to two towers at Concord Adex’s City Place will allow this skybridge being constructed by Walters Inc. to adjust to the movement of the buildings.
A 500-ton glass and steel residential skybridge high in the sky between two towering buildings has all the markings of a bold engineering feat you might expect in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
In fact, the unusual residences will grace the Toronto skyline next year.
The 130-foot-long two-storey sky bridge will link 38- and 43-storey residential towers at a dizzying 28 and 29-storey height. Billed as the highest skybridge residences in the world, it is part of a four-tower condo complex at Concord Adex’s CityPlace on the city’s former rail lands near the downtown waterfront.
Each of the two large residences will spill over from the towers into the upper level of the skybridge.
“The constructability of this bridge is extremely challenging,” says Peter Kranendonk, vice-president and general manager of Walters Inc., responsible for the structural steel design-assist, detailing, fabrication and installation.
Kranendonk says the biggest engineering challenge is how to detail the bridge to deal with a six or so inch sway expected in the two towers.
“Each of the buildings wants to move in its own way and the link between them has to accommodate those movements.”
The design employs “very large” expansion joints at connections to the towers and bearings with “translational capabilities” to move in all directions as the buildings move to ensure that the skybridge itself isn’t adversely impacted by sway, he says.
Plans call for bridge pre-assembly in the field on temporary falsework 40 feet off the ground, starting next winter. A wind study indicates the optimum time to do the lifting operation is early summer, he says.
The job will take about 10 hours of lifting and be completed in summer 2012.
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