IN Brief:
- Groundforce Shorco has supplied hydraulic propping for the 30 Marsh Wall basement excavation in Canary Wharf.
- The temporary works package supports a constrained triangular excavation around 7m deep.
- The project shows how engineered temporary works are becoming central to dense urban construction planning.
Groundforce Shorco has supplied a hydraulic propping solution for the basement excavation at 30 Marsh Wall, a student accommodation development near West India Dock in Canary Wharf.
The temporary works package is supporting OBR Group’s reinforced concrete works on the Vita Group scheme, with Murphy Group and Tide Construction also involved in the wider project team. The development includes a 48-storey student accommodation tower on a constrained site south of West India Dock.
The basement excavation is around 7m deep and formed within a triangular footprint. The three sides of the excavation measure approximately 50m, 37m, and 39m, creating a geometry that ruled out a straightforward propping arrangement.
Groundforce Shorco developed a system using modular hydraulic props, flying shores, raking props, steel corbels, and embedded support points. The support structure had to work around a secant piled retaining wall and reinforced concrete capping beam while keeping enough space clear for permanent works.
To reduce obstruction inside the excavation, temporary works engineer Niall Keely designed steel corbels that were cast into the concrete capping beams, along with steel stub columns to support flying shores. Remote load monitoring is also being used, giving the project team continuous visibility of prop loads during excavation and basement construction.
The design was assessed using Plaxis modelling, reflecting the technical depth now expected on complex urban temporary works packages. On tight plots, the propping strategy can influence excavation speed, plant movement, concrete works, safety management, and the ability of follow-on trades to operate efficiently.
Basement construction in dense urban locations increasingly depends on early coordination between temporary works, permanent works, logistics, and sequencing. A support system that is safe but too intrusive can slow the programme, restrict working areas, and create avoidable conflict between excavation, reinforcement, formwork, and concrete operations.
Recent ground-engineering work across the sector has followed the same pattern. On a constrained hotel scheme in York, specialist pile-cropping equipment was used to support tight-site delivery, while STRABAG’s proposed acquisition of Van Elle has continued to move through the market, strengthening the corporate focus on ground engineering capacity.
For contractors, temporary works planning is no longer a late-stage site exercise. Hydraulic propping, monitoring, and modelling can reduce uncertainty, but the system must be integrated with excavation sequencing, structural design, craneage, muck-away routes, access, and concrete placement.
The 30 Marsh Wall scheme also illustrates the growing role of temporary works specialists as design partners. Difficult geometry, deep excavations, and tight site boundaries often require bespoke arrangements that balance structural performance with buildability. Those arrangements depend on rigorous design verification, installation control, inspection, and monitoring throughout the works.
As urban development continues to target tighter plots, deeper basements, and taller buildings, engineered temporary works will remain a decisive part of project planning. Much of the delivery logic on schemes such as 30 Marsh Wall is established below ground, long before the permanent structure becomes the visible marker of progress.
