PROJECTS
IRDP housing gets facelift with Terraforce
Retaining walls are often used to create more usable, durable areas for building homes and roads on land that would otherwise be inaccessible.
By Terraforce
The Botrivier site where Terraforce retaining walls were installed.
Terraforce lends a cost-effective and versatile method for creating building platforms, access steps and road support for low cost housing – or in this case – relocating informal settlers to new Integrated Residential Development Programme( IRDP) houses in the Botrivier area.
In 2014 Dassenberg Retaining was approached by the Theewaterskloof Municipality to provide a solution for storm water management, access steps and erosion control between constructions levels at a new IRDP housing site in Botrivier, Western Cape.
During construction of the site, various levels were cut and services installed, creating exposed embankments that would erode and undermine the aprons around the houses. This required several Terraforce L12 retaining walls between one and two metres in height, all 20 metres long, with footing and subsurface drains in front of and behind the walls.
A number of one metre wide steps, using the Terraforce 4x4 Step block and L12 blocks as end stops, were also added to provide pedestrians with access between the levels. In addition, cut off drains were added to some areas of the housing site with Terracrete permeable pavers, to manage water run-off during the rainy season. The onemetre Terracrete channels were placed on A2 filter material and the blocks filled with excavated material. The retaining blocks used for the Botrivier site were pioneered by Terraforce – a Cape Town based pre-cast
Construction workers adding finishing touches to the retaining walls.
Terraforce retaining blocks were used for the IRDP Botrivier site.
concrete licensor – almost 40 years ago and represents one of the most energy efficient segmental retaining wall systems.
Georg Brand of Dassenberg Retaining, says,“ What makes this product so popular in the industry is that the blocks require low hardware input for manufacture, low transport costs and low inventory requirements at sales outlets. They are hollow, yet strong enough, and require less concrete to do the job when compared to solid block systems, which of course saves money.
“ Concrete retaining walls constructed using the Terraforce system are easily formed into complex curved shapes or into walls in which the upper and lower profiles are continuously changing, while the system also allows you a choice between round face,( plant supportive) or flush face( smooth or split version) to suit specific requirements,” he says.
Above all, they present a closed vertical surface structure that provides maximum amount of soil mass within the wall, which prevents backfill spillage, and at the same time offers uninhibited permeability.
In total 6 905 Terracrete, 8531 L12 and 1030 4x4 Step blocks were installed on the Botrivier site.
AFFORDABLE
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