Spring 2010 - Shipshape Magazine Bristol

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ARNOLFINI EXHIBITIONS Imogen Stidworthy Sat 27 Feb – Sun 25 Apr Otto Zitko & Louise Bourgeois Me, Myself and I Sat 24 Apr – Sun 4 Jul Caroline Bergvall & Ciarán Maher Say Parsley Sat 8 May – Sun 4 Jul Exhibition spaces open 11am - 6pm Tue - Sun & Bank Holiday Mon. Free Image: Otto Zitko (detail), untitled, 2005, Acrylic, Installation view: Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Photograph (c) Petri Virtanen / Central Art Archives, Helsinki. T: 0117 917 2300 / 01 E: BOXOFFICE@ARNOLFINI.ORG.UK 16 NARROW QUAY, BRISTOL BS1 4QA WWW.ARNOLFINI.ORG.UK Br stol’s Best Booze cru ses 0117 927 3416 | trips@bristolferry.com | www.bristolferry.com Summer starts here Now open Spyglass Barbecue & Grill Welsh Back • Bristol • BS1 4SB Tel: 0117 927 7050 www.spyglassbristol.co.uk “Legendary eaterie, ideal for a spot of early evening conversation, before it develops into a bona fide party destination fuelled by their peerless pizzas” Renato’s Taverna dell’Artista 33 King Street, Bristol BS1 4DZ Tel: 0117 929 7712 Email: info@renatos.net Shipshape offer: 10% off bill for tables of two or more between 7.30pm-9.00pm in the upstairs restaurant, Tuesdays and Wednesdays for the duration of March and April. Present this ad when using offer.
feature Lock, dock & barrel Words Rebecca Ewing It wouldn’t take the most observant of you to notice there have been changes afoot at Bristol’s Cumberland Basin. Those oversized cranes, Portakabins, high-vis jackets and hard hats would be the giveaway. And let’s not even mention the traffic diversions around Merchants Road. But don’t expect to see any expensive flats going up anytime soon: the work is actually part of a four-year project that is set to secure the future of the floating harbour for the next 100 years. The City Docks Capital Project, which is being carried out by BAM Nuttall Ltd, is set to cost around £11m and has been split into three phases – the first phase being the urgent task of improving and repairing the dock’s Victorian lock system. Work started to take place in October 2008 after Bristol City Council found there was “significant risk” that the 140-year-old gates at Junction Lock could fail. If the gates failed then the water in the floating harbour would go out with the tide, causing the harbour walls to collapse and the nearby buildings and houseboats to go with them – the cost of such a disaster making the £11m budget look miniscule in comparison. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this first phase was quite a challenge for the contractors, as site manager Matt Ewing explains: “Managing the interface between new and Victorian engineering and construction techniques created a few issues. Installing the new gates and ensuring they sealed was the biggest concern – the gates were manufactured in More bamnuttall.co.uk/bristolharbourgates It will cost £11m to complete but the City Docks Capital Project could well have saved Bristol from disaster. Shipshape investigates magic numbers The original pitch-pine gates were 140 years old and weighed in at 80 tonnes apiece ... The new steel gates were made by a Dutch company and weigh 50 tonnes each ... The new lock gates arrived on a floating pontoon and took 48 hours to manoeuvre into position ... The total cost of the project is around £11m ... A commemorative bench was made out of a section of the old gate and presented to Bristol City Council – a feat which is being repeated with a section of the old flood gates ... 10 staff, six BAM direct operatives, six agency workers and 35 subcontractors currently work onsite ... BAM Nuttall’s workforce is 80 per cent local Holland and we would only know if they were right when they were fitted.” BAM Nuttall had to first manufacture and install a limpet dam, which allowed them access to the lock floor while keeping water in the harbour – this limpet dam allowed the 140-year-old gate bearings to be replaced with modern equivalents in situ – before setting to work on the gates. “The old gates weighed 80 tonnes each and were virtually rotten,” Matt explains. “We used a 110-tonne crane on a barge to lift the old gates out of their hinges and then manoeuvred the barge into Cumberland Basin for removal, which we did via a 500-tonne crane set up outside the Lockside restaurant. The new gates [50 tonnes apiece] were much easier The crane lifts the specially made limpet dam into place at Junction Lock. Below: the gate bearings were replaced with modern equivalents to handle as we knew the construction and could design lifting points. Again, we used the mobile crane and floating crane to slot these into place.” The new gates were successfully installed in March 2009 but the work didn’t stop there. Phase 2 of the project – which aims to improve Bristol’s flood defences through the installation of new floodgates at Junction Lock and by upgrading the current operating system at Entrance Lock – kicked off in September 2009 and, despite some incredibly inclement conditions, looks set for a successful finale in summer 2010. “The weather through the winter months certainly gave us some problems,” Matt admits, “but hopefully a good spring will allow us to maintain the programme and achieve completion on time.” Shipshape fifteen
Page 1 and 2: Shipshape spring 2010 www.shipshape
Page 3 and 4: contents Welcome ... to Shipshape,
Page 5 and 6: eaT glaSSBoaT welsh Back, Bristol,
Page 7 and 8: “The opening of the new Museum of
Page 9 and 10: ith ew Shipshape & Bristol Fashion
Page 11 and 12: this PiC, Bottom Left, AnD ABove: t
Page 13: Bordeaux Quay l Millennium Square (
Page 17 and 18: feature Saved from developers and t
Page 19 and 20: BrUnEl’s BUttEry Wapping Wharf, B
Page 21 and 22: spyGlAss Welsh Back, BS1 4SB 0117 9
Page 24: Restaurant, Spa, Poolside bar. lido

Spring 2010 - Shipshape Magazine Bristol

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