West Block Restoration

West Block Restoration

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The West Block was constructed between 1860 and 1865. In 1897 the building was damaged by fire. The West Block is one of the three buildings on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario that forms the Parliamentary precinct. The West Block after renovation now houses offices for Parliamentarians, a branch of the Library of Parliament, committee rooms, and some preserved pre-Confederation spaces, which are used for some state occasions. All Canadian laws now originate here.

The world has changed radically since the Parliament Buildings were completed. The stone buildings, although repaired over the years, had begun to deteriorate. Cintec first started work on the west block in 1994 when Cintec reinforcement anchors were installed in the south west tower by Public Works based at Plouffe Park Ottawa. Since then, the West Block has been fully restored and modernized.

West Block Restoration Case Study

Solving Tile Anchoring At Frederick Douglas Academy VI

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Frederick Douglass Academy VI (also known as FDA), is a co-educational public school for grades 6-12 located in Queens, New York City. In 1991, Dr. Lorraine Monroe founded the Frederick Douglass Academy, a public school in Harlem, in the belief that caring instructors, a disciplined but creative environment, and a refusal to accept mediocrity could transform the lives of inner-city kids. Based on the success of Monroe’s original model, the New York City school system created seven other “Frederick Douglass Academies” around the city.

When the authority realized that backup for the proposed face brick replacement was Speed Tile there was concern about an effective anchor that was still sympathetic to the fragility of the Speed Tile Units. After an exhaustive search and realizing that the Cintec anchor, which is composed of a structural member surrounded by a sock, in this case oversized, with a cementitious grout pumped into it, had already been specified for other similar conditions by the NYC SCA such as Handicapped Railings, again in Speed Tile, they specified Cintec.

With the oversized bulb of cement on the back side/ internal part of the Speed Tile, due to the expanded distribution of load with the Cintec Anchor, the risk of failure or the Speed Tile wall was virtually eliminated. Since then, Sen Architects have specified Cintec on other schools where Speed Tile anchoring was required with full confidence.

Frederick Douglass Academy Case Study

Egypt’s oldest pyramid saved

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Egypt’s oldest pyramid has been saved from ruin thanks to a team of Newport engineers. The step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, known as the step pyramid, had been unstable since a massive earthquake in 1992 and was in danger of collapse at any moment. British structural experts Cintec were hired in 2010 to shore up the pyramid, believed to be the first large stone building on earth.

Much of the damage was done when an earthquake hit the pyramid in 1992, and the repair project was agreed by World Heritage and Egyptian antiquities chiefs. Over a period of almost a decade, with a three year hiatus due to the Arab Spring, the team has managed to stabilise the 62-metre high pyramid on the Nile’s west bank near Cairo, using giant airbags and some wire mesh left over from a previous project at Westminster Abbey. Engineering firm Cintec battled extreme heat, vandalism and political unrest in Egypt, but nine years later the firm has completed its mammoth task.