The new De Rotterdam development at Wilhelmina pier is on the site of an old harbour waterfront and will provide 160,000 sq m of commercial and residential space for retail use, parking space, hotel rooms and office space. Koolhaas spent 12 years planning the project, before work finally got underway in 2009.
Four Wolffkran cranes are currently assisting construction of the basement and parking levels of the development, with two Wolff 355 B luffing jib cranes and two Wolff 224 B luffing jib cranes being used to place concrete structural formwork and steelwork.
A third Wolff 224 B will be added early this year, with all five cranes expected to remain on site until early 2013.
Commenting on the selection of Wolffkran cranes for the project, Wolffkran’s Munich branch manager, Florian Rehklau, said: “We deliver tailor-made, on-site crane assembly solutions to suit our customer’s requirements and the building site conditions.
“To ensure fast construction progress, the on-site luffing jib cranes are operating in single line fall mode. While this has halved the maximum lifting capacity of the cranes, it has enabled higher lifting speeds to be achieved.”
To make effective use of space in the 50m x 110m construction pit the first crane installed was one of the 355 B luffing jib cranes, which was placed on a cross-frame.
This was then used to assemble the 244 B tower cranes on foundation anchors, removing the need to use a mobile crane.
Designed as three interconnected towers the development has been dubbed the ‘vertical city’ and is expected to be the largest building in the Netherlands upon its completion in 2013.
