PROJECT SPOTLIGHT
an interactive museum that retells
the story of the development of Parks
Canada. This is where Cyntech’s expertise
was called in.
“We designed and installed small
diameter helical piles to support the
second-story promenade, which is
now home to interactive displays, new
change rooms and washrooms for the
pools,” said Roper.
Challenges
Because Cave and Basin has been
in existence for decades, a potential
hurdle to overcome in breaking new
ground within a protected park was
not a concern, but there indeed were
issues that needed to be taken into
consideration, especially around piles.
The second-story promenade is now
home to interactive displays, new change
rooms and washrooms for the pools
As Roper says, one animal dwelling
in the hot springs meant that a different
strategy had to be used in the
project work than what one would normally
see at a job site.
“There’s an endangered species
called the Banff Springs snail that
resides in the hot pools, and that’s
where our restrictions were – protecting
the snail and ensuring that any
work being done on site didn’t have any
changes to the temperature, turbidity
or chemical composition of the water,”
said Roper. “The big one for us was
vibration. They originally called for traditional
driven piles, but they weren’t
able to cause any significant vibration
or high impact to the ground.”
It was at this point that Hurst
Construction Management, the lead
company on the project, reached out
to Cyntech. Their rig options weren’t
suitable for being able to work without
creating a disturbance that would
impact the snail. Cyntech’s solution,
thus, was to redesign and use helical
piles instead.
“We could get in there with small
materials and small equipment, and
install without any wasted energy
propagated through the soils, which
you have when dropping hammers
on driven piles or even with drilling
holes,” said Roper. “The benefit of the
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