BUILDING A TEMPORARY RETAINING WALL AT RICHARD LEE SCHOOL, UK

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The Richard Lee School located in Coventry, United Kingdom underwent demolition and reconstruction to rebuild the ageing infrastructure of the school. A new block was to be constructed adjacent to the existing structure which caused a problem between the temporary battered slope and the position of the scaffold base around the new building. To accommodate the scaffold, a temporary retaining wall was required to increase the amount of usable space at the lower level, providing a fence to separate the active construction site from the operational part of school.

OUR SOLUTION

Maccaferri were approached by Wates Construction to provide a cost-effective retaining wall solution. The team provided design assistance for the FlexMac system by incorporating the re-use of site-won clay which helped reduce the construction time and cost as no imported fill was required. The flexible nature of FlexMac allowed clay to be compacted inside the baskets without any damage to the structure.

The temporary retaining wall was completed in 3 days by a four-person team. A 35m long by 2.8m high FlexMac barrier was constructed using a total volume of 147m³ recycled fill and allowing for 500mm of embedment. The team was pleased with the temporary wall solution as it was quicker to construct and more cost-effective than building a permanent structure using traditional gabions.

PRODUCT USED

Maccaferri FlexMac® Temporary Flood Protection Barriers

• Hexagonal double-twisted wire mesh structure provides greater flexibility than rigid structures and solutions
• Supported by steel bars for stability which enables the unit to be conveniently filled onsite using locally available materials and stacked if required
• Rapid installation with minimal effort due to its lightweight structure, it is up to 40 times faster to construct than sandbags
• Used as a temporary solution whereby FlexMac can be easily emptied by lifting the units, allowing the fill material to fallout, and be efficiently folded up to store away for another emergency
• Easy to transport and handle, it is supplied in folded units which can be simply connected by pins