London’s Shard opening delayed

London’s landmark Shard Tower, Western Europe’s tallest building, has seen its opening pushed back until “many weeks” after the Olympic Games.

The news, announced at the weekend, (June 23rd 2012), comes despite the building’s physical construction being completed back in May of this year.

The news coming out of the team, suggests that its launch date will be delayed by at least two months. This would make for an early autumn opening, with the original date being set for July 5th.

The delays to the Shard, which stands at 310m including its spire, are understood to be down to design changes at a late stage.

The mixed use development, which will comprise residential apartments, office space, high-end restaurants and a five star hotel, has very much focused on design elements throughout.

This has included the construction of the concrete flooring.

It was an unconventional approach straight from the start, with concrete floors only making up the basement and levels 40 to 72, and composite steel and concrete floors from level 1 to 39 and 73 up.

This has allowed another floor to be added to the building, owing to lesser depth of pure concrete flooring. However, composite flooring was essential for the office floors, with additional pipework needed for air-conditioning, wiring and so forth.

For the residential floors, post tensioned concrete was used.

The basement meanwhile specified reinforced concrete, a decision partly made to maximise time.

With the added designs creating further work and adding to the overall time line of the project though, this time saving measure probably equates to something of little significance in the end.