Locals in Brighton have taken their first proper look at Marks Barfield Architects’ Brighton i360 vertical cable car, following the removal of the structure’s jacking tower.
Standing 162m (531.5ft) high on Brighton beach, the i360 will be the UK’s tallest visitor attraction outside London when it is completed in in summer 2016. It has been designed and engineered by the team behind the London Eye.
With the tower structure now finished, workers are adding the last pieces of cladding, while Mackley Construction firm is completing work on the attraction’s base building. The 100m (328ft) high crane used on the project, nicknamed “T-Rex”, will be taken away in the coming days.
Following the removal of the jacking tower, the attraction’s chief executive, Eleanor Harris, said: “Now that you can see it, you can get a real sense of why the i360 is the slimmest tall tower ever built in the world; it is a real marvel of engineering.”
When it opens, up to 200 visitors at a time will be able to enter the i360’s glass pod – designed by the French firm Poma-Sigma – with views slowly unfolding as it rises to the top of the tower.
The fully enclosed, aerodynamically shaped glass viewing cabin is ten times the size of the capsules on the London Eye.
While work on the i360 is on schedule, the project has suffered some hitches. In August it was revealed that the tower
would no longer feature a wind turbine powering the cable car, after concerns were raised that high winds could cause the structure to move.
The developers were also forced to abandon a planned rainwater harvesting system after concluding that the water collected would be too dirty to use.
