Main station contractor Mace Dragados completing final work on 1970s buildings

HS2’s demolition of Grant Thornton House and One Euston Square – designed by modernist architect Richard Seifert – has reached ground level.

The scheme’s enabling works contractor, a joint venture between Costain and Skanska, has completed two years’ worth of demolition work, taking the 1970s towers down to make way for the London terminus of the £100bn railway.

The site has now been handed over to main station contractor, a Mace Dragados joint venture, who will complete the demolition of the basement below in preparation for main construction works at the site.

The buildings were cocooned within an acoustic wrap to mitigate noise and dust in the local area.

Excavators with breaking and munching attachments were then lifted to the roof using the site’s tower crane and then worked down the building demolishing floor by floor.

More than 35,000 tonnes of reinforced concrete was demolished and processed on site for re-use on the station scheme.

The final stage of the work involved breaking a 2.7m thick first floor slab at the One Euston Square building.