What made the project unusual was that the brickwork is self supporting for the full 70mtr height of the tower. To ensure the brickwork is held in compression and the steel frame in tension, a giant clamp at roof level formed a post tensioned hollow brick column.

At first floor level the brickwork (and arch soffits) were 552mm wide and gradually decreased as the building goes up to 215mm at the 24th floor.

Manchester Brick & Precasts' contract was to produce the positively keyed segments for the 490 No. arches. This involved some 280,000 cuts to produce 60,000 segments. The capacity of our works was such that we easily kept pace with the build programme. The fast track programme required a floor to be raised every nine days.

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