Virginia Tech's own Center of Arts

I was always curious to find out what the building was with the one giant wall.  Every time I walked past the building I thought that it was strange that there was only one wall built. Where was the rest of the building?  I will show you what I mean.

This is the giant wall of Virginia Tech's Center of Arts building.  After taking a field trip with my class and my professor, Dr. Andrew McCoy (who took this picture) I learned a lot about the challenges that the Holder Construction Company is facing.  The biggest concerns for the company is the drilling of the deep foundation system, called caissons.  The drilling of these caissons has taken longer than expected because of the famous creek that runs underneath the job site.  The reason this becomes a challenge is because the drilling company has to drill deeper in order to find bedrock stable enough to support the building. 

Below I have attached some details that I found while I was visiting the site.

Walking through the site I noticed a couple of things that I learned in class.  First, shown in the first posted picture, is steal that you see against the concrete wall.  These steal pieces are most likely a brace to support the wall.  The other thing that it could be is what is called a raker.  A raker is commonly used in a deep excavation setting.  What I mean about that is this:

As you can see above, thanks to my professor (Dr. Andrew McCoy), these rakers are used to keep the soil from falling into the excavated area.  Eventually, a concrete wall will be poured around the raker.  Once the wall is completed and the rakers aren't needed for support anymore they will be removed. However, the piece left inside the wall will serve as reinforcement. 

 I think that it is a brace and not a raker because of where the steal is located.  The brace was not poured into the wall.  The brace was anchored to other steal pieces that wwere anchored vertically onto the concrete wall. Below are some pictures of the wall and the bracing. 

       

Caissons are one of the major components of this building, without the deep foundation system of caissons the building would never stand.  The process is as follows : First, you have to drill down into the ground until you hit a solid base of bedrock. Then, a precasted concrete casing is placed inside the hole (this prevents soil from falling into the drilled hole), then inspect the hole.  After this, you reinforce the hole, and finally pour the concrete to complete one caisson.

Before I finish I would like to show one last picture that was illustrated to me in a lecture about these kind of deep foundation systems.

I hope you have learned something or just enjoyed reading the report.

All the best,
Mic