Week of 18 April
1. Standing on the shoulders of giants (UAE)
At the Waste-to-Energy site, our colleagues from Six Construct have successfully completed the assembly of the fourth and final giant tower crane. The four cranes are now in use 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Their use is actually shared between our colleagues and our partner HZI: alternately, HZI uses them for the assembly of the equipment in the main factory hall, and BESIX for the installation of the steel roof structure. These impressive cranes have a capacity of up to 100 tonnes at 40 metres!
2. A highway for flowers (The Netherlands)
Floriade Expo 2022 started on 14 April in Almere, the Netherlands. It is a major event, recognised by the Bureau International des Expositions and held only every 10 years. As the name suggests, it is a world horticultural exhibition, which will run until 9 October 2022 and is expected to host two million visitors. In 2017, in preparation for the event and in order to allow visitors easy access to the site, the Rijkswaterstaat awarded BESIX NL and its partners a contract to widen the A6 motorway. Although the construction is now complete, this is not the end of the story. The contract was indeed a DBFM contract, which includes the maintenance of this infrastructure for 20 years!
3. BIM is also on the roads (België)
BIM, or Building Information Management, is not just for complex buildings or civil engineering projects. The group entity BESIX Infra, which specialises in road construction in Belgium and the Netherlands, also uses BIM models for road construction. And this is a nice example of BIM on site, as the operational teams use it as drawings. Our colleague Thijs De Potter, BIM Coodinator at BESIX Infra, gives us a good example in this nice animation!
4. A helping hand for local authorities (Australia)
In Brisbane, work on the Kangaroo Point Green Bridge was temporarily halted while BESIX Watpac assisted the local authorities in removing a restaurant that had been destabilised by the recent severe flooding on the east coast. The restaurant was hanging precariously and dangerously on a busy cycle path. BESIX Watpac mobilised its team and redeployed the marine equipment used in the construction of the bridge to re-establish safe access to the cycle path. Bravo BESIX Watpac!
And then this... The BESIX flag on top of the Alps
12 of our colleagues from BESIX Group went together to Avoriaz in the French Alps for a ski trip. They had the good idea to take a group flag with them, which they proudly planted on a mountain peak! A big thank you to them: at BESIX we love the concept of reaching the highest peaks. It was also a very diverse team, with members from BESIX Engineering, BESIX Belgium-Luxembourg and even MIC Construct: this is a nice symbol, reminding us that we can only reach the top together, through internal collaboration and co-creation between our different departments and entities.
