Construction—North America—Canada—Excavations
The Vancouver House Project:
Impressive Architecture with DYWIDAG Systems
The Vancouver House project is one of the most spectacular projects
currently under construction near the False Creek in Vancouver, Canada.
It is a 150m high tower building that will include restaurants, retail facilities
and 375 apartments and that will be opened in 2019.
Thanks to its unusual design that has already
won several awards, the high-rise building will
become a new landmark. Vancouver House
is being built on a triangular ground area of
only 557.4m². The twisted tower transitions
from a mostly triangular base to a rectangular
top section. This way, the upper floors
have a 1,208m² large floor space that is
approximately twice as large as the foundation
area.
The Vancouver House’s 7 levels of
underground parking required a 24.4m (80ft)
deep excavation that was stabilized by a
shotcrete anchored wall for the full depth.
To tie back the retaining wall, DSI Construction
Canada produced and supplied 1,200 Type
3-0.6" and 4-0.6" DYWIDAG Strand Anchors
in lengths of approximately 13.7m. Due to the
changing ground conditions in the excavation
area, 200 R51, 13.7m long DYWI ® Drill Hollow
Bar Anchors were also installed.
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Since the area on the south side does not
form part of the owner’s property, the use of
anchors was not permitted so that the area
of the excavation was stabilized by horizontal
girders that were diagonally braced at the
corners.
One of the biggest challenges on this project
was the close proximity to the Granville Street
Bridge approach spans. The foundation
loads of this bridge are transferred to large
spread footings that reach right to the edge of
the Vancouver House excavation. While the
excavation progressed, the bridge was
monitored at many different locations for any
sign of movement. Thanks to the efficient
stabilization of the excavation, no movement
was recorded during the entire excavation
process.
Owner
Westbank Projects Corp.,
Canada
Contractor
Southwest Contracting Ltd.,
Canada
Architects
BIG, USA, DIALOG and James
K.M. Cheng Architects Inc.,
both Canada
Consulting Engineers
GeoPacific Consultants Ltd.,
Canada
DSI Unit
DSI Canada Civil Ltd., Canada
DSI Scope
Production, supply
DYWIDAG Products
1,200 Type 3-0.6" and 4-0.6" DYWIDAG
Strand Anchors, 200 R51 DYWI ® Drill
Hollow Bar Anchors