Using one compact crane, Mammoet helped put a four-storey, 9,100-sq-m commercial lab building together with prefabricated steel and concrete elements in under two years.
Developed by Dura Vermeer in the Leiden Bio Science Park West in Leiden, the Netherlands, the building, “Nexus Leiden”, will house state-of-the art labs and offices over four floors for life science and pharmaceutical companies to rent.
Dura Vermeer wanted it built quickly so, with limited space in the science park, it settled on a modular approach using prefabricated concrete and steel components.
Lacking a laydown area for the 2,400 necessary components, the team – consisting of heavy-lift specialist Mammoet, main contractor Dura Vermeer Construction South West, and concrete supplier Holcon – organised just-in-time delivery of the components, which were assembled with a single crane positioned in the middle of the building’s footprint.
Among the elements it lifted into place were floor slabs and a big steel staircase for the atrium.
Truckload every two hours
To ensure constructability, Mammoet engineers joined the project early in the front-end engineering phase.
“We assessed that we would need to assemble the structure from the inside, and in stages,” said Mammoet’s Benelux projects director Frank Melse.
The team had to coordinate closely with the German factory making the elements to agree detailed delivery schedules.
At peak times, trucks arrived with components every two hours, up to eight times a day.
One 250-tonne crawler crane – a Kobelco CKE2500, picked for its compact footprint – took up position and lifted everything into place around itself in a ‘U’ shape, only crawling out when it was time to assemble the middle section.
Every element was numbered, so it was like assembling a piece of Ikea furniture, only on a bigger and more complex scale, Mammoet said.
“There were many parts that needed to be constructed in the right order and with very little space,” said Melse.
“We also knew that time was critical. With two years to complete the entire build, we estimated that 25% of that time would be needed for the assembly of the shell structure. Therefore, it was critical that everything ran smoothly and on time.”
Work on Nexus Leiden started in April 2024. Dura Vermeer says it’ll be finished in the fourth quarter of this year.
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