One engineer. Both disciplines.

Geotest Group is a chartered geotechnical and structural engineering practice in Christchurch, working across Canterbury, on projects from one dwelling to a large scale subdivision.

Akram Kawa

Founder and Director

Akram is a chartered professional engineer, and the practice is built on him holding both disciplines rather than one of them. The work runs from a single beam in a house alteration through to foundation systems on TC1, TC2 and TC3 land and the mass movement sites either side of them. He does the site work himself, which is why an answer from here arrives with the reasoning still attached to it.

The ground and the structure, under one roof.

Most projects split the ground from the structure across two firms, and the gap between them is where consent risk lives. Here they are the same practice. One engineer investigates the ground, designs the foundation the ground allows, and signs the producer statement that carries both. Nothing is handed over a fence. Nothing gets lost in the handover, because there is no handover.

Geotechnical Engineering

The practice.

Who does the work, and what they hold.

Discipline: Geotechnical and Structural
Engineer: Akram Kawa, CPEng
Office: 99 Clarence Street, Riccarton
Coverage: Christchurch and Canterbury

Sprayed concrete face on a soil-nailed cut

A temporary face holding an excavation while the permanent structure goes in

Chartered, and accountable for it.

The credentials are not decoration. CPEng is a protected title under an Act of Parliament, and IntPE(NZ) is the international register that sits above it. Together they are why a sign-off from this desk is something a council will act on.

Years

In New Zealand ground and structure.

500+

Jobs completed

Residential to commercial.

IntPE(NZ)

APEC Engineer

International recognition most NZ firms do not hold.

Disciplines

Geotechnical and structural, one firm.

CMEngNZ
CPEng
IntPE(NZ) / APEC Engineer
Engineering New Zealand chartered member
Member: NZGS, SESOC, NZSEE, NZTDS, NZGS IAEG
Registered Producer Statements Author, Auckland Council: PS1, PS2, PS4

The local firm, without the trade-off.

Going with a smaller practice usually means trading credibility for access. Not here. You get a chartered engineer who picks up the phone, knows your site, and stays on the job from the first test to the final producer statement. The same standard as the big names, from someone who is actually yours.

Talk to the engineer, not a queue.

Akram answers his own phone. Send the plans, or call and describe the site, and you are talking to the person who would do the work.

Talk to Akram Send Through Your Plans