The Civil Engineering Contractor June 2018 | Page 15

ON SITE L ocated on the corner of Oxford and Chaplin roads in Illovo, is a huge hole in the ground, dropping 13 metres to what is destined to be the floor of the fourth parking basement of an office block. The construction site is for the 96 Illovo office development, commissioned by client Victhyme Investments. Dev Devan, project manager at 3D Projects, describes what the development comprises: “The project involves the development of a 7 500 square metre A-grade office block, consisting of four levels of basement and ground, plus three levels of offices. The size of the plot is 3 500 square metres in an extremely tight site.” The site, like all the other new developments underway in the built- up area, is struggling with a confined working space. “One of the challenges in managing this job is the logistics created by having a site that is bound by Oxford and Chaplin roads, as well as the close proximity of a built-up property next door,” Devan explains. Presently underway, but nearing an end, are the bulk earthworks, which are being completed by Harrogate Civil Construction. Pregan Moonsamy, contracts manager at Harrogate, describes the scope of work: “To get to the depth we have, which is 13 metres from ground level, we excavated about 40 000 cubic metres of earth, in about two-and-a-half months,” he explains. Looking around the site, in overcast weather, there are large puddles of water, evidence of the recent storms that battered Gauteng. Moonsamy assures, however, that this has not delayed the project to any degree: “Other than a minor delay around an issue over an existing stormwater pipe, the earthworks are on schedule because the underfoot conditions are good for excavation, as the earth is soft to about seven metres in depth,” he adds. CEC CEC June May 2018 - 13