Delivering a seamless civil engineering design
Ausenco was engaged by the North Vancouver School District #44 to perform civil engineering design for external seismic upgrades for Mountainside Secondary School.
Initially, our focus was on the regrading of the driveway and parking areas. However, as the project progressed, the building required seismic upgrades which included new foundations. This resulted in the need for significant re-construction of the driveways and parking areas at the revamped finished grades. Carefully designed new doorway landings were also required.
Municipal regulations also mandated that the potable water and sprinkler water service connections to the building had to be replaced, from the municipal watermain along the street fronting the school, and extending to the building. That meant there needed to be new water metering, a new irrigation water service connection, and a new backflow prevention system for the new sprinkler water service to the building. The driveway entrance also needed to be reconstructed to meet municipal standards.
Our team worked closely together with the building and landscape architects throughout the project to seamlessly integrate the civil engineering design and to meet architectural objectives.
Our scope of work on the project included delivering an integrated set of design drawings for:
- The regrading of the parking and roadway areas, utilising existing catch basins as much as possible
- A new driveway entrance
- A circumferential sub-drainage system with branches that drained underneath an area of the lowest floor, and from high groundwater spots in the staff vehicle parking area
- A new municipal water service connection that included a new water meter, split to provide:
- A new potable water line to the building
- A new sprinkler line that first runs through a new backflow preventer. It then splits to connect to the building internal sprinkler room in one direction and the new fire department Siamese connection in the opposite direction at the top of the driveway.
During construction, which was carried out over a period of approximately two years, our team provided frequent troubleshooting services. Construction was completed during the summer of 2023.
Outcomes and achievements
As the on-site design and construction work proceeded for the new buttress and shear wall foundations, our team was able to identify a much more efficient and less costly solution for the perimeter sub-drainage, instead of the conventional full replacement of the footing drains to accommodate the new seismic upgrade foundations. This helped to shorten the project schedule for our client.