Construction World July 2015

PROJECTS AND CONTRACTS

ROCKY CHALLENGE AT GARSFONTEIN SITE

Gauteng Piling recently successfully coped with exceptionally rocky strata to complete the piling foundations for a new 15-storey office block in Pretoria.

Kobus Geyer, contract manager for Gauteng Piling, says 145 piles were provided by the company for Summit

placing steel reinforcement into the holes, and then filling the holes with concrete. Says Kobus Geyer: "The major piling chal- lenge for this project was the exceptionally rocky site. Themany large underground builders struck during the drilling operations took quite a heavy toll on our rigs and a high level of main- tenance had to be kept up throughout the piling operations," Geyer stated. "Gauteng Piling was prepared for boulders as we had, a few years, handled the piling for the Hotel Fire & Ice, which was built in late 2013 on ground adjacent to the site where the new office development is now taking place. But the severity of the boulders and

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rocky terrain we encountered this time posed even greater challenges than two years ago." The 145 piles provided over an area of about 3 600 m 2 for The Summit were all 11 metres deep to cope with the rocky strata, and varied in diameter from 600 mm to 1 650 mm. The pile bearing capacity ranged from 1 000 kN per m 2 for the smallest diameter pile, to 13 500 kN per m 2 for the biggest. Bearing capacity determines the maximum load the soil can safely carry during piling operations. Steel reinforcement cages inserted into the piles ranged from 450 mm to 1,5 m in diameter. Gauteng Piling – which employed aWilliams LDHH digger and a SoilMec hydraulic drilling rig for the piling foundations – subsequently was awarded a contract for another 34 piles on the western side of the Summit Place site. The company has in the past 18 years completed over 1 500 projects to become one of the major players in the piling industry in Gauteng. The company – which provided the piling foundations for the massive Mall of Africa last year - has a fleet of 20 auger drilling machines, two cranes, two bore rigs, four Grundo hammers, and two lateral support machines. A photograph showing a typical underground boulder that made the foundation excava- tions a formidable task. completed the construction of these two buildings at the top of a plateau, with a valley reaching 120 metres below, where winds can reach up to 120 km per hour. The construction of the Neckartal Dam is of great significance to the country as it will create a reservoir capable of holding 857 million cubic metres of water, based on figures by Salini. When completed, the dam will bring about economic growth and prosperity in the country as it will be used for power production, irrigation and agricultural development. In addition, the development thereof has created a number of job opportunities. To ensure the smooth running of the devel- opment process, the speedy completion of infra- structure such as this office space for the client and main contractor is an essential factor. For this reason, Kwikspace’s prefabricated buildings are highly suitable to the project requirements. Comments Nick Alexander, director of busi- ness development for Kwikspace Modular Build- ings in Africa:“Our involvement at the Neckartal Damwas a great success. As a company, we are always pleased to contribute to projects that facilitate positive developments in a country.”

Place, Phase II: Building E, being constructed by GD Irons Construction, for Neo Trend Property Developers. The new Summit Place building will, on completion be an A+ Grade office park with about 9 000 m 2 of office space, highly visible just off the N1 highway on Garsfontein Road, opposite Menlyn Shopping Centre. The auger cast in-situ piles provided by Master Builders Association North member, Gauteng Piling, were formed by drilling holes of various sizes and depths into the ground,

An overall view of the start of the Gauteng Piling operations at Summit Place with concrete being poured into one of the piling holes.

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CONTRIBUTING TO NAMIBIA’S DEVELOPMENT

South African company, Kwikspace Modular Buildings (Kwikspace), recently broke new ground in the rentals market in Namibia when it delivered its first ever rental units in the country for use as accommodation by the construction team involved with the development of the Neckartal Dam.

allowed for easy transport of the building materials and on-site completion according to the clients’ specifications. In this instance, the Salini office measures 758 m² and the engineer’s office 448 m². On completion of these buildings towards the end of last year, over 60 employees were provided with office space. Never afraid of a challenge, Kwikspace

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Shortly after this project was initiated, Kwikspace was contracted to construct two offices at the Neckartal Dam

Project site for Salini Namibia the construction and engineering and company responsible for the construction of the dam. Measuring 1 206 m² in total, the two offices were set up as site-erected buildings, which

CONSTRUCTION WORLD JULY 2015

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