Ground engineering is not usually a candidate for TV drama, but two years ago the extraordinary story of how Claridge’s hotel built the ultimate iceberg basement under its 100-year-old building while remaining open for guests made it onto the small screen. A BBC TV crew spent six years filming the construction of a five-storey basement for a swimming pool, spa and back of house facilities.

To build the basement without disturbing the hotel was essentially a mining job. Small tunnels and shafts up to 30m deep were hand-dug under the building’s raft foundation and 62 existing columns. New concrete piles were built in the shafts to support the building above, then the rest of the basement could be excavated for fitting out.

Now the former Claridge’s team of specialist contractor McGee and geotechnical engineer RKD Consultant have come together to pioneer a radical new piling technique in a bid to extract as much value out of a particularly difficult development site in central London.