Sprayed concrete face behind a masonry block retaining wall on timber poles

Retained excavation

A cut face has to be held from the moment it is opened, and the ground decides how, not the detail that worked on the last job. So the profile through the cut was read first, and the loads it returned are what the retention was designed against. Everything after that followed from those numbers: the grid, the pass thickness, and the order the work went in, which was drawn with the package rather than settled on the day.

Every job starts in the ground.

Fifteen years and more than five hundred jobs, and not one of them started with a drawing. They started with a test. What follows is the shape of the work: what the ground turned out to be, what it allowed, and what got built on the answer. Some of it is retaining and slope work on ground that wanted to move. Some of it is foundations on lots a council had already flagged. All of it went through the same two disciplines under one roof. Names and photographs land here as clients release them.

The full retained excavation record

Selected projects.

Each entry names the ground and the construction it called for, and opens onto the full record: what the testing returned, the design it produced, and how it was built.

What each one took.

The same order every time, whatever the job turns out to be.

Ground investigation
Hand augers, shear vane and Scala penetrometer to around 3.0m, cone penetrometer testing to 15m where the ground calls for it.
Site classification
The test results set the technical category. The category sets what the foundation is allowed to be, before anyone draws it.
Design against the numbers
Foundations, retaining and structure designed to what the investigation returned, not to what a site nearby was allowed to do.
Producer statements
PS1 on design, PS2 on review, PS4 on construction, issued by the engineer who did the work rather than countersigned from a distance.
One consent package
Geotechnical and structural go to council together, so the build is not waiting on a second consultant to catch up.
The engineer on site
Akram oversees the work himself. The person who signed the report is the person who saw the ground.

Reinforced raft slab set out over void formers before the pour

Void formers cut the concrete a raft needs. The ribs between them carry the load.

What a thin report costs.

A report that guesses at the ground gets found out at consent, or later, when the slab moves. Council sends it back and the build waits on a second round of testing that should have been the first. Or it passes, the crack turns up in year three, and the conversation about who pays starts with an engineer who is long off the job. The investigation that answers the question the first time is the cheap one.

The record behind the work.

Not a showreel. A count of jobs read, designed, and signed off.

15

Years

In New Zealand ground.

500+

Jobs completed

Residential to commercial.

IntPE(NZ)

APEC Engineer

Chartered to a standard that carries at consent.

2

Disciplines

Ground and structure, one firm.

Your site is the next record.

Send through what you have. Plans, a title, a photograph of the slope. The first thing back is a read on your ground.

Get a Free Site Assessment Send Through Your Plans

Retained excavation

Every job starts in the ground.

Selected projects.