Całowanie
Logistics facility in Całowanie — precast foundations
A logistics building on open ground near Warsaw, founded on precast concrete. The drone photographs show the foundation stage: a grid of pocket bases set out for the future structural columns, and the finished slab. The units were distributed across the site in the order dictated by the column grid, so that the crane could work along the axes of the building without doubling back.
Foundations for a hall are the stage that most often pulls a programme apart, even though they look modest in the cost plan. On a building with a large footprint there are several dozen bases, and in traditional construction each of them is a separate small site: excavation, blinding, formwork, reinforcement, concreting and curing. All of it happens in the ground, in conditions where the weather decides everything — after two days of rain the excavations have to be pumped out, and a churned-up site stops being passable for a concrete truck.
- Year of completion:
- 2024
- Use:
- Industrial buildings
- Location:
- Całowanie
Scope of work
Then there is setting out. The hall columns have to stand on their axes to an accuracy measured in millimetres, because they carry a roof structure fabricated to size in advance. With a base cast in situ, the position of the pocket is the sum of how the formwork was set and whether anything shifted during concreting.
A precast pocket base arrives at its final dimensions and takes the column as soon as it has been set. The pocket has the geometry of the mould, and installing it comes down to levelling the unit on a prepared blinding at a surveyed point. The wet trades disappear from the site, and the start of frame erection stops depending on how much rain fell the week before.
The connection itself works more cleverly than it looks. The column is lowered into the pocket with clearance, plumbed with wedges, and only then is the space around it grouted. Adjustment therefore happens after the unit has been lifted, rather than by hitting the point exactly — which, with a column weighing several tonnes, is the only practical method. Once grouted, the joint works as a fixed connection: it carries not only weight but also the moments from wind acting on the whole hall.
Scope of work: precast concrete pocket foundations for the loadbearing columns, transport and erection on site.
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