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Simplex Westpile worked on this unusual and technically demanding installation of secant piling and foundations for Weston Homes at Bridges Wharf in Battersea, in a £1.3m contract.
The site runs along the River Thames embankment and is flanked by the Battersea Heliport.
The development mix includes 252 residential apartments, a 100 bedroom hotel and 2800m2 of commercial space.
An unusual feature of the scheme is that the whole basement area is common to all three buildings. The main secant retaining wall for basement levels 1 and 2 runs parallel to the embankment, but the rectangular basement level 3 is set on a diagonal of approximately 20 degrees to the upper levels.
Due to this rotation, the soils berm thickness to the secant wall varies at different points of the basement and larger diameter piles were not permitted in the design. Instead, innovative use of the internal bearing piles was devised to assist the external retaining wall.
Groundwater levels due to proximity to the river necessitated pile length adjustment to suit the naturally occurring river channels in order to ensure a watertight seal of the basement.
Phase I of the scheme commenced with the installation of 290 linear meters of bored secant retaining wall constructed using two heavy duty CFA rigs.
The wall utilises soft primary piles formed at 750mm diameter and firm piles at 900mm diameter. Pile depths are from 10m – 16m below ground level.
Phase II involved the installation of bearing piles from the level of the second basement. 500 piles were constructed by rotary auger methods and extended as deep as 30m depth below basement level.