Attention, “wolves” on the track – five WOLFF cranes in a challenging deployment at historical London construction site

26.03.2026 | Press Release

The construction project comprises two central residential buildings: “The Ariel”, the 23-storey residential tower with 167 apartments, and “Scenery House”, a nine-storey building that contains 180 residential units. The first four cranes, all WOLFF 355 B types, were erected between July and August 2025. Three of them are responsible for the lower building components. For the section of building with the high tower, a WOLFF 355 B (TC1) was erected to an initial freestanding tower height of 77.2 meters in order to slipform the concrete core.

During the roughly 20-week construction phase of the core tower, the WOLFF 355 B was climbed to a freestanding tower height of 95.2 meters. “Although tie-ins on the tower could have been an option, it would have led to downtimes, which is why the customer opted for the freestanding version, which we implemented using a tower combination of the 3.3-meter TV 33 tower element and four TV 20 tower elements,” says Gerard Saville, Senior Sales Manager at Wolffkran Ltd.

Once the concrete core had been completed, the WOLFF 355 B erected a WOLFF 630 B (TC1A) with a tower height of 9.0 meters. It was erected on top of the slipformed core on a steel grillage using bolted tower spigots. Once commissioned, the WOLFF 630 B (TC1A) immediately dismantled the adjacent WOLFF 355 B (TC1), before being used to complete construction of the reinforced concrete tower.

WOLFF cranes deliver, even under challenging conditions

To comply with the strict oversailing regulations set by London Underground due to proximity of the Hammersmith and City Line, all the cranes had to be placed on the rear of the building, which, for its part, has special requirements for crane deployment. Since all the tower cranes and mobile cranes are located within a defined safety zone, they must be reduced to 75 percent of their regular lifting capacity. At the same time, the crane foundations had to be constructed 33 percent stronger than standard.

Thanks to their high lifting capacity of 11.6 tons for a 40-meter jib, they can carry out all the necessary lifting tasks, even at 75-percent capacity. The very steep jib position and the low park radius of 12.0 meters made the WOLFF 355 B jib crane perfect for this job, since the cranes did not slew over the railway tracks, neither during operation nor when parked.

A well-conceived timetable for assembly and dismantlement

From the beginning, the crane arrangement was planned to enable some of the WOLFF 355 B to be mutually disassembled. This is how one of the WOLFF 355 B has already been dismantled.

The remaining three cranes – two WOLFF 355 B and the WOLFF 630 B on the residential tower – are expected to be disassembled using mobile cranes. It is particularly demanding to disassemble the WOLFF 630 B, which stands at roughly 100 meters. A 650-ton mobile crane has been planned for the operation.

Rigging and de-rigging of the 650-ton mobile crane will be made all the more difficult because it will be standing in a circular road, on which the project is built. The curved road makes it difficult to assemble the mobile crane’s full luffing jib on the floor in a straight line, before running out of room. For this reason, the luffing jib will need to be assembled in the air (‘piked’ as it’s known).

Even assembling WOLFF cranes was challenging. The new TVC2 development is being built in close proximity to fully occupied residential flats built in the first phase. There were strict noise and environmental restrictions in place regarding working. To avoid impacting the construction process of the other trades as much as possible, the work primarily had to be done at the weekend, and hence outside of regular business hours. However, it was still a consistent challenge to shut down other work during assembly to comply with the

stipulated safety zones. The necessary mobile cranes were permitted to be set up only in close proximity to the railway track. As a result, its lifting capacity had to be reduced to 75 percent, and all the work had to be performed parallel to or outside of the track area.

Red WOLFF cranes – the seasoned pros in London

Wolffkran’s years of experience with inner-city construction sites and construction projects directly adjacent to train infrastructure is the main reason why it was able to handle this project. Space constraints, strict regulations in residential neighborhoods, and, in particular, complex approval processes are part of day-to-day life on construction sites in London.

Furthermore, for Television Center Phase 2, the job was assigned on very short notice, and there were less than three months between the planning stages and the first crane assembly. “These framework conditions significantly limited the pool of available providers. WOLFFKRAN was capable of responding quickly and assembling a viable crane and logistics concept,” says Gerard Saville. “Not only was the available crane fleet critical, but also in particular the processes involved, the experience of the team, and close coordination with all the project participants.”