ON SITE
Traffic jams were everyday occurrences in the constricted conditions.
says Marx. This was supplied by Harrowgate from any one of several nearby quarries, the one selected at any one time being dependant on weather conditions and which quarry was accessible.
The contractors commenced on site in July 2017, and the wet 2017 / 18 rainy season meant the loss of 16 workdays, with each wet day often
" When we lose days to rain, we mitigate it by working longer hours whenever we can.”
Hardus Marx. also causing the subsequent loss of the succeeding day.“ The clay in the ground meant that drainage was poor, and we had to use water dumps extensively to continue work. The terms of contract limited us to a total of 20 days lost to rain for the full duration of the contract, but we have already used 16 of them.” The contract concludes in February 2020, so another full rainy season has to be managed.
Rain being a natural phenomenon, it is something that contractors such as Liviero lose out on, says Marx, although he adds that“ when we lose days to rain, we mitigate it by working longer hours whenever we can”.
Another challenge was the physical tightness of the site. The entire 1 950m 2 footprint is used, with building taking place right up to the building line, and just a small walkway for students to enter. As is common when working in builtup areas, construction took place virtually under the shadow of adjacent buildings. There is also a 3m-wide servitude road at the back of the site( the opposite side to Jorissen Street), which will only be usable once the building is complete. Logistics is consequently a problem, eased only slightly by a permit obtained to use one lane of Jorissen Street. This is the only space where containers and materials could be delivered and stored. When multiple deliveries take place, trucks have to queue and park each other in.
“ This requires extremely tight, short-term planning as we could not store too much material on site. We have to keep access to the site free at all times, as well as having sufficient materials on site to continue working,” says Marx.“ We could not use the standard practice of leaving sufficient sand readily available on site— instead, we opted for having pre-mixed sand delivered just in time from AfriSam, even though this came at a marginally higher cost. It is something we had to do so that no mixing would take place on site and further aggravate the cramped
20- CEC October 2018