Due to a piled raft foundation solution that has been supplied by Walsh, there has been a successful topping out of a 33 storey building that will hold 454 units of student accommodation in Vauxhall, London. The leading structural and civil engineering company, Walsh provided the build with the raft foundation which has enable the project to come so far.
The Student Accommodation building is being completed for Urbanest. The client is investing £42 million on the project which site at 5 Miles Street. Walsh have had to get past a variety of different obstacles in order to get this far. The site of the student accommodation is quite small and there has been sensitive settlements as well as a tight construction programme. The site is a 1,000 square meters and sits right next to the Network Rail viaduct and a number of other existing buildings. Walsh also had a deadline for starting the work on the site which meant that the company was unable to do pile load tests in order to reduce the design factor for safety. Without these tests, the contractor would be able to use 1200mm piles but the rig would be too big for the site in question. In order to deal with this, Walsh designed a lean concrete frame and a support from a piled rafting order to make the most of deep level ground support which will limit deflections.
Work on this site has been challenging because of the tight construction programme. However, the company has dealt with projects that are similar to this for Urbanest and Balfour Beatty who always try to push boundaries and use innovative solutions and technologies in order to do so. It is thought that the project on 5 Miles Street will be finished by the end of the year.
