A steep challenge

Newcastle is built on the side of a large hill, which presents an engineering challenge to anyone who wants to build there - and May Gurney is the latest firm to take up this battle with gravity.

May Gurney's Geotechnical team is currently at work in the west end of Newcastle's quayside, building a fully cantilevered wall to make space for a 13-storey apartment tower block and an eight storey mixed-use block.

The team had to install a contiguous bored pile wall across the back of an existing lower retaining wall on the very tight site to create more room for the development and protect it from any movement in the bank side.

"We came up with the idea that this could be a fully cantilevered system which would not only allow Mandale (the developer) to excavate to a fully retained height of 8m so they could construct their building, but it also negated any need for any anchors to be installed to support and retain this structure," says May Gurney's Nick Sharp.

Click here to read the full story, courtesy of Construction News.