The University of
Saskatchewan’s
Collaborative
Science Research
Building
Innovative Piling Solutions
tackled a project that was
tight on both time and space,
devising a customized piling
solution that met construction
deadlines despite the
intervention of Old Man Winter
By Lisa Gordon
Time. It’s the one ingredient that was extremely
scarce during the foundation construction phase
for the University of Saskatchewan’s cutting edge
Collaborative Science Research Building (CSRB).
In fact, the timeline for constructing the foundation of the
$63 million, 91,000-square-foot research facility in the fall of
2016 was so tight that construction meetings were held every
12 hours to ensure the work stayed on track.
Not only did pile driving need to be completed before the
university’s final exams started on Dec. 8, 2016, but work had
to be done within a limited daily window that respected com-munity
and university noise by-laws.
Add to that a Saskatchewan cold snap that delivered
three feet of snow on freshly excavated soil within one week
– and space restrictions that necessitated squeezing up to
four pieces of equipment into a 15×15-foot area – and it’s
no wonder that Banain Cote, vice president of operations at
Martensville, Sask.-based Innovative Piling Solutions (IPS),
called the CSRB project one of the province’s most complex
deep foundation projects.
“Not only was it a combination of earth retention and
deep foundations, it was trying to make the schedule work.
Not many projects have required that level of scheduling
intensity,” said Cote during a recent interview.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF INNOVATIVE PILING SOLUTIONS
76 Q1 2018 www.pilingcanada.ca
/www.pilingcanada.ca
