Unfinished Site Visit 3: Pakington Strand

The Pakington Strand is a new development by Woolworths located on Pakington Street in Geelong West. Apart from a full-line supermarket, the project includes more than 300 car parks, 22 specialty stores, offices and landscaping. The Safeway will be the company's first "green" store with the use of natural light.

This particular site has focused heavily on the use of tilt-up panels. The concrete elements would have been cast into the horizontal position close to the final location. It would then be lifted by a rotating panel until it is in a vertical position that you can see in this picture.

In this picture can see the strongbacks which enable the panels to be lifted into place. They comprise of steel sections that are fixed to the panels. The use of bracing and propping is significant in terms of resisting construction loads, wind loads etc.

When it came to having these particular panels on site the builder opted for stack casting, this is when 3 or 4 panels are on top of each other. A bondbreaker is used to seperate the panels which makes for a more efficent and economical construction process.

Artists impression of the completed project.