London City Digital Air Traffic Control Tower

At 36m high, this remote-control tower designed by the Pascall+Watson practice is a world-famous one. A 360-degree view is captured by 36 cameras at the top of the elegant structure and delivered via an armored stream to a control room 100 kilometers away, where air controllers make the decisions.
As a completely autonomous and digital tower, the project had special requirements in terms of deflections and vibration control.
After completion of manufacture, the structure was pre-assembled in the factory to ensure its feasibility. All bolted connections were designed to be concealed, which allowed to give a very clean look to the truss structure that constituted the tower. Upon the delivery of the structure to the project yard, the tower structure was assembled in 3 large sections each 12m high and transported to the project site via barge. The full assembly of the tower was then carried out with a 500ton crane in a mere 3 days and the Airport operation was never interrupted.


Image:
© Ricardo Oliveira Alves