Replacing quay walls is a huge task for municipalities and has significant impact on the neighbourhood. Quays are often subject to prolonged closures, construction traffic needs to access the quay, noise and vibration nuisance affect the neighbourhood and there are often listed buildings in the immediate vicinity. Houseboats often need to be relocated and trees removed. This puts huge pressure on city accessibility and results in high levels of inconvenience throughout the neighbourhood.

The Municipality of Amsterdam came to the conclusion that it would take too long to meet Amsterdam’s significant quay wall replacement challenges using the currently available technologies. That’s why Amsterdam challenged the market to develop innovations. It decided to seek a solution that would halve the implementation time and reduce inconvenience by half, while costing half as much. In short: a fantastic challenge.

From the very beginning, G-Kracht gave itself the challenge to develop an innovative quay wall replacement method that significantly minimises its impact on a city.

The Municipality of Amsterdam issued a special form of tender, a so-called Innovative Partnership; the first special tender of this size in the Netherlands and one for which many companies tendered.

At the end of April 2020 and following an initial selection, the Municipality of Amsterdam awarded the contract to three consortiums.

The consortiums, including the G-Kracht consortium, will complete a year-long research & development phase to further develop their radical innovations. The developed solutions will be introduced in three city centre pilot projects in 2021.

If these pilots are successful, a framework agreement of between 4 and 8 years will be signed with all three contracted market parties. The methods will then be used for approximately half of all annual quay wall replacements.

Amsterdam is the first city in which G-Kracht will develop the so-called GRB system, Amsterdam type (Giken Reaction Based system). The equipment to be deployed will be moved along the newly-installed quay structure. This means that both the roads and the water will remain available for normal use. The new quay structure will be installed using a vibration-free method. Moreover, this methodology puts an end to the use of temporary cofferdams. It is an extremely innovative working method and expectations are high. If this innovation is successful in Amsterdam, it can be used in various places in the Netherlands as well as across the world.