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April 2015
Industry Buzz, Events & Products
M
aster Builders South Africa
(MBSA) has announced that
Executive Director, Tumi
Dlamini’s three-year contract ended
in February.
Shewill shortly depart for the USA.
Dlamini has enrolled at the Harvard
Kennedy School of Government to
study for a Master in Public Adminis-
tration degree.
MBSA President, Neil Cloete, said
that Dlamini played a significant role
in raising the profile of MBSA and
Women in Construction, opening
dialogue with government and other
public institutions.
Cloete advisedMBSA stakeholders
that MBSAOperations Director, Pierre
Fourie would manage the affairs of
Dlamini heads for Harvard
I
llovo-basedM/Architects designed
the building, which will feature
2 900m² m of office space, says
van Schlapobersky from M/Archi-
tects. The former residential property
was demolished and great care was
taken topreserve existing trees on the
periphery of the site.
Kobus Geyer, Site Manager for
Gauteng Piling, says the foundations
for the 4-storey office block (with
double parking basement levels) on
over 1 000m² required 77 auger cast
in-situ piles, varying between 14 m
to 18 m in depth. The diameter of the
piles varied: 27 x 500 mm in diam-
eter, 11 x 600 mm, 19 x 750 mm, and
4 x 1 100 mm in diameter.
Auger cast in-situ piles are formed
by drilling holes into the ground, plac-
ing steel reinforcement into the holes,
then filling the holes with concrete.
In built-up residential areas, such
as Houghton, auger cast piles cause
minimal disturbance and are gener-
ally favoured for environmentally
sensitive sites.
Steel reinforcement employed
for the piles consisted of seven high
tensile strength steel bars (7Y32),
32 mm in diameter; and spirals of
mild steel, 8 mm in diameter with a
200 mm pitch. The rebar cages in-
serted into the piles were 950 mm in
diameter and 4,33 m in length.
Gauteng Piling provided piles for
lateral support for a retaining wall
against the site’s northern boundary.
Gauteng Piling was entrusted
with the provision of foundation
piling for a luxury office block
development in Eighth Street,
Houghton, being built and
developed by the Barrow Group.
Tumi Dlamini
the organisation until a new Execu-
tive Director has been appointed.
■
Geyer added, “The piles will eventu-
ally form part of a retaining wall,
sprayed with Gunite - a mixture of
cement, sand, and water - through a
pressure hose to produce the strong
‘lining’ of the retaining wall.
Gauteng Piling employed two rigs
for the piling project a Williams LDH
digger with 5,5t-m torque, and a Soil-
mec hydraulic drilling rig.
Two prominent Gauteng Master
Builders are closely linked with
Gauteng Piling. The company was
established in 1996 by former MBSA
and MBA North President, Nico Maas
(current chairman of GP), and is now
run by MD, Hennie Bester, who has
served as president of MBA North for
an unprecedented three-year spell
from 2011 to 2013.
The company has a fleet of 20
auger drilling machines, two cranes,
two bore rigs, four Grundo hammers,
and two lateral support machines.
■
Foundations for Houghton block