The foundation piles

Up until the last decades, it was very challenging and costly to build very tall tower buildings or skyscrapers in London soil. It was until the development of foundation piles, and plunge piles that London was able to grow on the vertical axis.

From what we know, the Chalcots Towers have foundation piles as structural stability. Because of the characteristic softness of London clay, piles function through surface friction, instead of anchoring to a harder more stable material like chalk, which is too deep in the London basin.

The Chalcots towers, because of their height and necessary foundations, had to be repositioned from original plans not to interact with the Primrose Hill railway tunnel which is only 13.7m metres below ground.

As a general image, and like trees, you can imagine that all buildings have a reflection of their structure underground. Although they are not always proportional to their height, depending on the technology being used and the soil type. But as a principle, there is always an urban landscape under the ground level, corresponding to the landscape above the ground.

The piles continue to provide structural stability through key walls of the building. At Chalcots, the core of the towers, corresponding to the 4 walls that hold the lifts, the staircase and the electric installation boxes, themselves appear to hold most of the structure of the flats that extend outwards in three different clusters.

Just as the internal core holds together the structure of the Chalcots blocks, so do the estates’ caretakers. Employed by the London Borough of Camden, the caretakers know the inner workings of each block and each estate intimately. Not only are they deeply immersed in the fabric of each building, but many are also close with residents and often support vulnerable residents, run errands for them and check in on them.

We like to think of the caretaker as a key figure to access the vernacular life of the three estates. They have a deep insight into the internal life of the buildings - both materially and structurally - , but most importantly, the human layers of those who dwell within them.

[Link to Chalcots Estate]

[Link to the Underground]