During our traditional Christmas cruise, the team of Maru Betoonitööd OÜ visited Helsinki. This year, we celebrated Christmas time (in Finnish: pikkujoulut – “little Christmas”) at the Radisson Red hotel, built by our company. Christmas cruise is a great opportunity for our structural and cost engineers to get to see site work, and the members of the construction team to visit other sites of the company and meet colleagues they do not see every day. Two years ago, we visited the Vuorikatu 24 site and were able to see how the basement structures were built into rock and linked with the car tunnel passing through the Helsinki city centre. Last year, we could already enjoy the city views from the roof of the building. This year, we could “throw steam” at the sauna of the Radisson Red hotel handed over by the builder Jatke, and have a Christmas gathering with our colleagues from Helsinki at the hotel restaurant.
As always, we visited our sites under construction. In cooperation with Haahtela Rakennus, we are building the Kemira Erica laboratory centre in Espoo. There, we could see the casing works of the ceiling of the basement made of monolithic concrete, the installation of steal posts, beams, reinforcing elements and concrete elements, and the preparation for the monolithic process. Together with Haahtela team, we discussed the challenges of concrete works in winter, how to secure normal working conditions in cooperation, what kind of covering and heating methods to use, and how to secure pathways and lighting.
In cooperation with Fira Rakennus, we are building a sports and leisure centre Hybridiarena in Kivenlahti, Espoo. On this site, we could see the building of monolithic shafts before the installation of elements, and admire the installation of wall panels almost 10 meters high, the installation of 22-ton posts and 25-metre TT panels. During our visit, the floors of the hockey field were being reinforced, and the cast-in-place concrete floor were being poured on the second floor.
We also went to see the SRV Rakennus Woodcity2 site in Jätkasaari, where the concrete we made is mainly mixed with wooden structures. We saw the water-resistant outer walls of the basement floor, the elevator shafts, the connecting nods made of concrete joining steel and wooden elements. Together with the project manager of SRV, we also discussed the role of concrete structures in wooden constructions.
At the end of the busy day, we also managed to pay a quick visit to our Helsinki office.
