Groundworks - Longleat Center Parcs

building Tree Houses at Center Parcs ...

Groundworks is very much part of the bread & butter of what Lansdowne do, however building these Tree Houses at the Longleat Center Parcs was a little unusual. First of all the site is on a slope, a slope comprising of stripped top soil in between some giant Longleat Forest Redwoods.

This was hardly the best platform to be bringing a piling rig into work on, but the piles went in without too much trouble. The pile caps were then cast with starter bars for the columns, that would later rise from the caps to support the slab above.

Lansdowne engineers were responsible for the calculation and setting-out of each phase of the groundworks contract: piling, pile caps, columns, slabs, and the positioning of the timber frame (sole plate) upon the completed suspended slab.

As you can see from the architects dwg above the ground falls away as you move further into the Tree House and away from the road, this resulted in the front of the slabs being around 8m above the pile caps below.