Foundation work....

With my thesis defense finally finished, I'm finally getting around to another post about the site. Below are photos from the last 2 months sent by Yiannes and my dad, along with some I took on the one site visit I was able to make.

Foundation work has been moving forward with steady progress. In addition to the retention walls that I discussed in the last post, we've also been shoring up the neighboring foundations with shoring piles cast under their foundations. I was able to see various stages of this process during my site visit.

A backhoe is used to remove the dirt in a small area around the location of the pile to allow access to build a box in which the concrete is poured to make the pile. This is called "an approach pit"

Backhoe building an approach pit

The concrete mold is then built by hand from wood. The stone above the box is the bottom of the neighboring church's foundation. Its such an old building that it wasnt built very far into the ground.

Concrete mold for underpinning pile.

A concrete vibrator is used to remove air bubbles from the concrete after pouring:

Concrete vibrator

Once the concrete sets, the mold is removed. Here you can see a completed piling. Yiannes told me how they close the gap between the top of the poured piling and the bottom of the foundation but I can remember how now...

Two photos of completed piling and approach pit.

I will be making a trip over soon to check how this progress is proceeding but id imagine most of the shoring work is completed by now and we are on to pouring elements of the foundation now. Lots going on!

Here are few more images of the construction of the soil retention walls:

Drilling holes for the retention wall pilings

Drill bit

Completed soil retention wall on east side of site - note the pilings.