Foundations are key in any building, but particularly in high rise / heavy load buildings. I believe here is a clear example of driven pile foundations being utilised in one of the earlier buildings in the project. Driven piles are used in a multitude of building types, as they transfer their load to rock or soil that have sufficient bearing capacity paired with good settlement characteristics.

Image courtesy of architects: Whitby wood.

In a news update from Whitby wood it is stated that they had to change their original plans as they encountered underground anomalies “such as the two 2.1m diameter, 20m deep brick-lined wells that were found to be situated directly below two of the building stability cores.” In this case they had to devise a plan to maintain schedule and make sure that the buildings in question were safe. Any extra weight over the surrounding brickwork could have caused a collapse.