Retaining that holds the slope.
Retaining wall and slope stabilisation design across Christchurch and Canterbury. Designed, drained, and built to stand.
A wall is a decision about the ground behind it.
A retaining wall holds a slope that wants to move. What pushes on it is the ground behind, the water in that ground, and the load in front. We design the wall to all three, then detail it for the builder or the landscaper who puts it in, because a wall that cannot be built as drawn gets changed on site by someone who never saw the numbers. The type follows the site, not a catalogue.
Geotechnical EngineeringWalls we design.
The wall matched to the height, the ground, and what it has to hold.
Timber pole
Poled walls for garden and driveway cuts, sized to the retained height.
Masonry
Reinforced block walls, faced or fair, on an engineered footing.
Concrete
Cantilever and counterfort walls where the load or height needs them.
With or without tiebacks
Anchored back into stable ground where the wall cannot cantilever.
Soil-nailed and shotcrete
Steel bars drilled into the face on a grid, then sprayed with concrete, for steep or deep excavations.
Gabion
Rock-filled baskets where a free-draining, flexible wall suits the site.
How it runs.
From the slope to the certified design.
- 01
Inspect the slope
An engineer walks the site before anything is drawn. What has already moved, how any existing face is standing, and how the grade runs away from the cut all narrow the problem before a rig is booked.
- 02
Test the ground
Shallow testing to confirm the conditions, logged with a site plan.
- 03
Model where needed
Slope stability modelling where the ground or the height calls for it.
- 04
Design and detail
Sized for the loads the assessment returned, then drawn out part by part: wall, footing, drainage and backfill, so the crew has dimensions rather than intentions.
- 05
Certify
A producer statement where the wall needs one for consent.
A slope in section.
A retaining wall holds back the layers above a line the ground would otherwise slip along. Finding that line, and the water that lubricates it, is the design. The profile below is indicative, not a specific site.
What we assess.
The forces that decide whether a wall holds its line.
Site stability
Whether the slope is stable before anything is built on it.
Geohazards
Slips, mass movement, and unstable ground flagged early.
Groundwater
Where the water table sits and which way it moves through the slope, because that is what sets the pressure the wall has to be designed for.
Surcharge
The extra load from a building, driveway or vehicle behind the wall.
Foundation options
What the wall needs below it, confirmed for local authorities and the structural engineer.
What a geotechnical report contains
What retaining work looks like.
Walls and slope works, frame by frame, from a pinned cut face to a finished wall line.
A wall that moves takes the slope with it.
A retaining wall that was not designed for its ground does not just lean. It lets the slope behind it creep, and the creep does not stop on its own. By the time the cracks show, the fix is a bigger wall and a disturbed section. Water is usually the culprit, and drainage is usually what the failed wall skipped. Designed and drained properly, a wall holds its line for the life of the section.
Hold the slope properly.
Send the height you need to retain, what sits above and below it, and a few photographs of the slope. That is usually enough to say what the wall has to be.