Dundee: V&A Museum Opens on River Tay

The V&A Museum in Dundee that reaches out into the River Tay was officially opened this month.

The iconic structure required extensive marine works to build the foundations in this challenging tidal environment.

Back in 2015 a large steel piled temporary cofferdam was installed using a 45 tonne long reach excavator along with heavy cranes but due to the cantilever of the building causing it to overhang the River Tay, cranes would not be suitable for its removal.

Much larger long reach excavators were brought in with electronic control systems and specialist attachments to pull out over 620m of piles and excavate over 12000 tonnes of stone, working under the building facade.

Long reach specialists WM Plant Hire used two machines working from the mid point back to the shoreline, weighing up to 100 tonnes.

The marine works were completed by BAM Nuttall and the building by sister company BAM Construct UK.