As part of the £31m development of a Grade II former Victorian school, two floors were added to the four-story building which was being converted into 76 luxury apartments.
The project
To accommodate the extra floors and carry the extra loading, the project involved the reconfiguration and extension of the current foundations of the existing building.
The challenge
The piling works comprised of upgrading the existing building foundations to accommodate the increased loading from the additional high level floor construction. The building loading in the subject area is now supported using a combination of newly constructed rotary bored piles, along with bonded Pali Radice rotary bored piles, increasing loads within the column pad foundations. The works were carried out in restricted access conditions using 2no electric FF4 specially adapted drilling rigs.
The solution
The existing column foundations were strengthened using the Keller proprietary Pali Radice mini piling system where 280/235mm diameter piles were rotary bored directly through and permanently bonded to the existing column bases increasing the bearing capacity. This method removes the need for a dowelled pile cap extension or over cap construction. Electric powered rigs were used to carry out the work.
