Appearances can be deceptive. A quick look at the outside of the ￡34.6m Waverley Gate project and you'd think not much has changed since Building last went on site more than a year ago (see 17 January 2003, pages 52-54). From Edinburgh's busy Princes Street you can see the same mass of scaffolding interspersed with red structural supports, giving no clue as to the progress inside. This is the largest retained facade project in Europe. It will involve a glass-walled box, designed by local architect Hugh Martin Partnership, being placed inside the facade of a 1861 grade A-listed former post office. The 215,000 ft~2 office is to have two central cores, eight floors of office space and another two floors for car parking and plant. It is a steel-framed structure founded on a mix of piled foundations and foundations dug into the rock and reinforced with concrete. And all this has to be done by Christmas 2004, and work is progressing 24 hours a day.
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