The Shard, which is situated in London, United Kingdom is also known as ’the Shard of Glass’, Shard London Bridge, and formerly London Bridge Tower. It is a 95 story skyscraper which began construction on March 16th 2009 and was completed in July 2012. The Shard has 72 habitable floors with an observation deck on the 72nd floor.
Timeline of construction : February 2009 - a mobile crane and a small piling rig appeared on site. Early March 2009- the crane began putting steel beams into the ground 16th March 2009 – Full construction began 28th April 2009 - The first bits of steel work went into The Shard's piles on 28 April. March 2010- the concrete core was rising steadily at about 3 metres a day. In June 2010 they had reached the 33rd floor. The 68th floor was reach in mid November.
The early part of January 2011 was when the hydraulic screens were brought in to form the concrete floors . January 25th 2011, the concrete pumps began pouring the concrete to form the floors. On average, a new floor was poured every week.
On 24 September a final crane which was at the time the tallest ever built in Britain was used to install the skyscraper's upper spire. The spire was pre-fabricated and pre-assembled based upon 3D models, and underwent a "test run" in Yorkshire, United Kingdom, before being lifted onto the building itself. By late December 2011, The Shard had become the tallest building in the European Union. The final 516 panes of glass were added shortly after making the tower the full height of 309.4m.
The Shard is 309.4m high which makes it the tallest building in the UK, third tallest in Europe and 59th tallest in the world. It is around 2.7 times shorter than the Burj Khalifia in Dubai (the worlds tallest building). The Shard has 10 apartments, 27 floors of offices, three levels of restaurants and 19 floors of hotel accommodation. The top of The Shard hosts public viewing galleries, with The View from The Shard on the highest habitable levels. An apartment in The Shard costs approximately £50 million. The Shard can be seen from 40 miles away.
When building The Shard, 11,000 glass panels were used on the outside which equated to eight football pitches, 54,000m3 of concrete was also used which is equivalent to 22 Olympic swimming pools. 95% of the construction materials that were used are recycled and 20% of the steelwork was also recycled. Inside The Shard there are 44 lifts which include double decker lifts and 306 flights of stairs. The total floor space of The Shard is 27 acres of land. The corners of the development are open and The Shards do not touch which allow the building to breathe.
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