Engineering The Shard, London: tallest building in western Europe.

The Shard in central London is 310 m high, making it the tallest building in western Europe. Designed for client Sellar Property Group, it is a 'vertical city', containing shops, offices, restaurants, hotel, apartments and a public viewing gallery. This paper describes the design and construction of the building, which has a concrete core, steel-framed floors to level 40, concrete floors to level 69 and a steel 'spire' at the top. Various innovative construction techniques were used to save time and improve safety, including building the three-storey basement and core top-down, installing plunge columns to high levels of accuracy, and using modular construction for the spire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]