Seven wonders

Construction of seven 51.8 m tall concrete lift and stair cores for expansion of a hospital in Ohio has just been completed in seven months using formwork supplied by Doka. Work on the seven 4.27 by 4.88 m structures is central to expansion of the Cleveland Clinic, which is being carried out by main contractor Donley’s Incorporated.

Restricted space on site meant that Donley’s needed a formwork solution which would help overcome this problem and speed up the work and called on Doka to find a solution.

This was the first time Donley’s had worked with Doka but it was pleased with Doka’s plan to use preassembled formwork units. The cores were constructed using 2900 m² of pre-assembled Doka Top 50 formwork and over 1000 m² of pre-assembled platforms with telescopic shafts and Doka’s MF240 climbing system.

The formwork system allowed Donley’s to carry out a concrete pour on each core every week, working on a five day cycle. According to Donley’sproject manager Mike Dilley, one of the main benefits of the MF240 platform system was that it only took two hours of crane time to lift the formwork up the next level on each core.

Work on casting the fair faced concrete cores is now completed and the contractor is on schedule to complete the new hospital building by 2008.