My name is Matt Turnbull. I'm working with Naylor Love
as a Site Manager on the Wellington Town Hall construction project.
So it's a challenging build.
We've got to squeeze a huge amount of piling equipment through the building
to complete up to about 150 piles,
piles targeting dense gravel there
about eight metres down in the ground.
One of the challenges on the project was achieving the target depth for the piles.
The machinery was only just narrow enough
to fit through some of the smaller rooms we had to pile within.
And for that reason, the subcontractor actually chose
specific zero-slew machinery modified to fit within smaller spaces.
So within the building, we used a 25 tonne excavator.
The boom on the excavator has been chopped in half,
and for this project, we're using a steel screw pile with the helix on the bottom.
Additional concrete and
steel counterweights in the arm of the digger allowed
additional downward force whilst trying to drive the screw piles into the ground.
This has meant that we were able to drive the screw piles to the target depth
when we're limited by the size of the equipment we can bring into the Town Hall.
For other piles outside the building
we've used a standard thirty tonne excavator.
The standard weight of this machine means we can drive piles without having to add
extra weight to the boom, and the additional length of the boom
means we can drive longer sections of pile,
in some cases, completing piles in full lengths,
whereas inside the building, driving eight to 15 metre piles
in three metre sections with a smaller machine requires additional welding.
Naylor Love has spent
a lot of time working with the council at the tender
stage and pre-construction stages of the projects trying to work out
how to get the piling machinery through the building,
causing as little damage as possible,
but whilst trying to maintain efficiency for the for the piling subcontractors.
It was important to incorporate the use of BIM in the planning stages
of the project to ensure that the machinery that we were going to use
would fit within the spaces and can navigate the building.
Once the routes through the building were were confirmed,
we started with heritage salvage of a number of elements of the building
and that was followed by a controlled saw cutting of masonry walls
and sequenced demolition.
It's important to follow the sequence that was developed
during the planning stages. As the works are completed,
we place obstructions in the way and trying to get back to re-do
works or complete works that were missed out of sequence would be impossible.
Prior to construction works
commencing, Naylor Love was able to use its technical expertise and resources
to scan the building to verify the building's location,
and then has used a Total Station to complete
a lot of the set out to ensure the piles are driven in the correct location.
And then we're also able to use the Total Station and the survey control
to prove the location of the as-built piles.
Prior to the piling works commencing on site
trial piles were installed in the ground at the Town Hall and at another location
reflecting the ground conditions expected at the Town Hall.
The trials gave the engineers and the contractors
the opportunity to review methods that were going to be employed,
and the designs that had been developed were able to be completed on site
and achieve their quality results that the client would be looking for.
Naylor Love and Latteys
have taken the piling on as design & build package. Latteys'
engineers have been a part of the process from start to finish.
As such, Latteys' engineers have been on site through the entire
piling process, ensuring that the quality required from the process is achieved.
It's been quite exciting coming to the end of the piling portion of this project.
It's known that Latteys'
engineers and the Council's engineers have agreed on approval of the process
and the final result.
Once all the piles have been driven, pile caps were installed
by the piling subcontractor and then the areas are handed over
for the concrete construction works to commence
these commence with the raft slab constructions,
the raft slabs are quite heavily reinforced 850 mm thick concrete slabs.
Quite a lot of time has taken over the placement of the LRB
holding downbolts to ensure these are in the correct location.
So once the raft slab concrete pours are complete,
the LRBs can be placed in their correct location.
It's been quite neat
on the Town Hall project, working with a range of different people
and different areas of expertise, and Naylor Love
has got some good experience on the team as well through engineers, site managers
and also bringing in the commercial team to understand how we can take
the restrictions of the Town Hall project
and the opportunities brought to us by Latteys.
to ensure that we can provide the Council with a project that works out well.
Coming to the completion of the first stage of the piling
in the Wellington Town Hall,
it's been great to recognise and celebrate the wins with Wellington
City Council and our subcontractors and within the Naylor Love team. We're
now ready to allow other trades to follow on and complete their works.