City Park 1

Careys was appointed to work on City Park 1; a new, high-quality commercial development. Our team was responsible for the basement and foundation works. Subsequent to the completion of the basement works, our team successfully completed all drainage and hard landscaping works.

Client

Argon Developments (North) Limited

Location

Aberdeen

Principal Contractor

Multiplex

Aerial view of large car park with white-lined spaces, red vehicle in centre, surrounding buildings and full car parks visible.

The first stage of this contract began with the 34,000m3 basement excavation, which started in early July. This enabled completion of the car park facility, which included a basement tank comprising a raft slab and perimeter retaining walls.

Underground car park with grey brick flooring, white parking bay lines, concrete pillars and low ceiling with fluorescent lighting.

The foundation works entailed the construction of a 1m thick raft slab within the basement covering an area of 6,500m2. We also erected a reinforced concrete perimeter retaining wall of approximately 3.5m in height and approximately 415m in length. A second 180m external precast retaining wall was also erected within the lower car park to enable the area to be upfilled, creating space for an external structure and additional car parking.

Crucial to the successful delivery of the project was our ability to monitor the temperature of the concrete, for which our specialist team used thermocouples to monitor heat gain.

For the upfilling process we used the existing material from the bulk excavation, which was treated by the addition of lime stabilisation to produce the engineering fill. These stabilisation works were carried out by a specialist subcontractor working with our team.

It was particularly important to monitor the temperature of the concrete used in the retaining walls as there was a concern that a thermal differential might induce cracking. Our engineers used thermocouples, (devices that produce a voltage to mark differences in temperature), to monitor the heat gain. In order to meet the stringent architectural specifications, the concrete formula was designed in conjunction with an external designer and concrete supplier, Breedon Aggregates.

Services provided