Basildon New Town's First Multi-storey Car Park

Our comments on sanctions-or rather that there were none-associated with errors or neglect of checking authorities (September 1975) have elicited a salutary riposte from Mr. T. N. W. Akroyd (F). Verulam

A great population explosion combined with an acute shortage of building sites have led to intense high-rise building development in the urban areas of Hong Kong. Fig 1 typifies this sort of development and shows a 20-storey block of domestic apartments carried on reinforced concrete walls of slip-form construction. The walls are partly supported at second-floor level on three reinforced-concrete transfer beams BI, B2 and B3, each of which is supported at one end by columns Cl; C2 and C3 respectively. These columns are offset from the upper walls to provide ready access to the two storeys of car-parking located beneath the apartments and are, in turn, carried on caissons at a lower level. S. Mackey and Thomas K.C. Wan

This paper describes the general design procedure and construction techniques adopted for this extensive development in central London. The sub-structure work involving the construction of deep basements and the adoption of various design and constructional techniques are described. The results of strain gauge measuring procedures adopted in the foundations are discussed together with the approach to the foundation design. F.T. Hodgson and A.W. Bryan