As a response to growing demands on the real estate market, Hermina Center Ingatlanforgalmazó Kft. has launched its “Hermina Happy Land 5-6” project with the goal of erecting Central Europe’s largest passive house in Budapest’s District XIV.

The nine-storey building complex will house 255 apartments on a total base area of 170×35 metres. Colas Alterra has been trusted with structural construction works to be executed in two phases. The buildings have a pier-frame load-bearing structure: in case of each unit, loads are borne by 19 piers, and transferred to the 60-centimetre-thick slab foundation, which has been constructed with expansion joints. Since the basement level is located below the prevailing groundwater level, the foundation slab and the outer walls have been built from waterproof concrete.

The contract for the first phase – civil engineering – includes the earthworks, drainage, and the construction of the reinforced concrete frame up to the joist covering the ground floor. We took over the job site on 8 June, and the construction works were kicked off the same day. For the sake of the best use of spaces, basements cover the entire area from wall to wall, which posed a true challenge in the civil-engineering work phase. Near the driveway of the adjacent building – just five metres from our structure – we installed injected torcrete shoring, thus ensuring undisturbed traffic. In the sandy soil of the work pit, the reduction of the groundwater level by 1.8 metres required the installation
and continuous operation of four nine-metre-deep well points. Due to a lack of space and to make use of the curved shape of the structures, the performance of works was aided by three tower cranes set up onto the foundation slab and protruding through the basement joist. The civil-engineering phase was successfully completed in late October.

We took over the site for the building-structure construction phase on 30 September, and we immediately set out to install the walls and joists of the first floor. The expected pace of construction is one storey every two weeks. Due to the tight schedule, approximately 70 of our employees keep working on the site. As the final deadline is the end of March 2017.