Construction World July 2015

CONSTRUCTION WORLD

JULY

2015

PROJECTS AND CONTRACTS

Kobus Geyer, contract manager for

Gauteng Piling, says 145 piles were

provided by the company for Summit

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

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,

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

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

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

for the smallest diameter pile,

to 13 500 kN per m

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.

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.

A photograph showing a typical underground

boulder that made the foundation excava-

tions a formidable task.

An overall view of the start of the Gauteng Piling

operations at Summit Place with concrete being

poured into one of the piling holes.

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

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

CONTRIBUTING TO NAMIBIA’S DEVELOPMENT

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.”

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.