Golden Bay Property Developments is known for an ability to accelerate its property projects to swiftly supply a significant demand for office and industrial space in Pololwane, Limpopo’s capital city.This latest project will provide 40 additional offices to a growing number of small, medium and micro businesses establishing their operations in the hub of the lar gest urban node north of Gauteng.
By February this year, the property developer’s building division had already commenced brickworks on the second and final storey of the structure.

The impressive production rate achieved on this project can also be attributed to the use of hollow-core slabs that ensured that 800 m2 of flooring at the second and final level of the structure was completed in only two days.

Once levelled and grouted, brickworks could commence promptly to complete the shell of the structure at this level, while the specialist trades started fitting out ground floor. More than 90 hollow-core slabs, each 8 m x 1, 19 m, were delivered to site from CoreSlab’s state-of-the-art factory every day in line with the works programme.“We had two of our trucks travelling between the factory and the construction site most of the time during the installation phase to ensure timely delivery of the items. They were lifted directly from the trailers using our own mobile crane and one element was installed every six minutes by our competent teams,” Clifford Mogale of CoreSlab says.

Mogale was involved in this project right from the outset when CoreSlab was first approached by Golden Bay Property Developments to supply and install the hollow-core slabs. The company’s work scope also included assisting the client in designing the most optimal layout of the hollow-core slabs to facilitate their rapid installation. CoreSlab has helped this property developer significantly accelerate about 10 other projects in the Waterberg area. This is in addition to its involvement in other property developments, including leisure, retail and residential, as well as building projects for state, ranging from student residences through to civic centres and schools.

The precast concrete specialists’ services and modular system eliminates the need to install propping and staging, as well as the timely co-ordination of construction activities, ranging from steel fixing through to the stripping of the concrete shutters.

Instead, the high quality hollow-core slabs, each no less than 40 MPa, are manufactured off-site and transported to site where they are placed on thin mortar bedding that is prepared by the main building contractor the morning before they are installed by CoreSlab’s team. This approach to constructing the floors of the structure shaved as much as five weeks off the overall construction schedule.

He says that the company’s many clients also benefit from the high accuracies that are achieved by manufacturing the elements in a controlled environment.“Workers are not exposed to the many variables on a general building site that may hinder precision levels. They also work at ground level, while the installation component of the programme is assigned to small and skilled teams, which contributes towards a safer construction project,” Mogale says.

Building in this manner also alleviates pressure on building teams operating in an already-constrained environment. In addition to reducing the number of people required on site when constructing the floor, this method eliminated the need to co-ordinate the timely delivery of multiple consumables, as well as building materials in the bustling built-up Polokwane central-business district.

CoreSlab’s installation team comprises up to 10 people, and this includes a highly experienced foreman, rigger and the operator of the company’s cranes. A large 160 ton Liebherr was deployed to assist in the efficient and safe lifting and placing of the elements, each weighing in at 40 tons.

The crane was deployed to site ahead of the arrival of the precast-concrete elements and installation team, and was strategically placed right next to the structure to accelerate the installation process. The CoreSlab teams worked alongside Golden Bay Property Development’s site manager, Rodney Chauke, who says that CoreSlab’s ability to provide a comprehensive precast concrete solution also added significant value to this project.

This project will complement a similar earlier development in Polokwane that also relied upon CoreSlab’s know-how in precast-concrete technologies. Jaco de Bruin, managing director of CoreSlab, concludes that he is proud of the company’s long association with this client, noting that moderate growth in gross-domestic product

indicates the start of economic recovery that will have a profound positive impact on the embattled building sector.