Croydon
Engineered retaining walls and major site cut
| Structure | Engineered concrete sleeper |
|---|---|
| Wall area | 90 m², up to 2.6 m high |
| Excavation | 650 m³ removed |
| Ground | Rock, hydraulic hammer and augers |
- The constraint
- The original plan moved every load from the backyard to the front before it could go on a truck. On the first assessment we found that temporarily relocating two air conditioning units opened direct truck access down the side of the house.
- Design response
- Boulders at the front, an access road built from material exported off the rear, dressed with crushed rock. Trucks could then load beside the works instead of double handling 650 cubic metres.
- Building it
- Ground got harder as the cut went down. A 20 tonne excavator with a hydraulic hammer and rock augers took out the rock, then 90 square metres of wall went up on structural steel posts and engineered footings.
- The change mid job
- The client asked for recesses in the wall for gabion cages to be added later. That meant custom steel fabrication and tighter set out, built in without compromising the structure.