Significant time savings through state-of-the-art foundation techniques

Since its founding in 2006 by ir. Bart Cloet, Votquenne Foundations has grown into a leading player in foundation and shoring techniques. Besides the manual foundation techniques of sister company Votquenne, Votquenne Foundations specialized in machine techniques for foundations. The company now has 45 employees and has its own transport company, VQ Logistics, and a spin-off, Revyson, for probing and drilling.

Two of its recent projects deserve special attention. In the first project, commissioned by Alinso/Willy Naessens Industriebouw nv, we take a closer look at the foundation works for a building that will be used by Johnson & Johnson as part of its first European production center for cell therapy in Belgium, a new way of treating cancer. The second project concerns the Bellecour residence, a prestigious complex of 98 apartments with a 3-story underground parking lot in the center of Braine-l'Alleud.

Particularly stringent safety requirements

Janssen Pharmaceutica, subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, will develop treatments against blood cancer in its new site on the Zwijnaarde/Ghent Technologiepark from 2023. The foundation works had to meet extremely strict safety requirements, which fit perfectly within our vision of VCA standards. For more safety on all sites, Votquenne Foundations itself also regularly requests external audits. During the annual VCA audit, safety on site was once again confirmed as a priority and the efforts in this regard as a strength of Votquenne Foundations.

An additional difficulty was in transportation. For this site, the two LRB355 foundation machines, each weighing 130 tons, had to be completely dismantled and reassembled on site, a job never done before in Belgium. The site could only be reached via a number of bridges, which could not support such a total weight. Ancillary company Revyson, which operates completely independently, was responsible for the necessary additional soil testing and probing on this site. This project was directed by several study and control agencies where the main focus was to minimize settlements. For this, therefore, only the largest piling machines are eligible to perform this heavy-duty drilling work. The foundation works include the installation of 1,700 screw piles and floor piles to a depth of 18 meters. The works were started in mid-October this year and should be completed by the end of January 2022.

New landmark in crowded downtown

Residence Bellecour is an apartment building rising in the center of Braine-l'Alleud, on the site of the former Royal Athenaeum. Votquenne Foundations was in charge of all foundation work there. It installed over 300 running meters of secant pile walls, with piles to a depth of 18 m. This required the use of its most powerful, 130-ton foundation machine, the LRB355. 

She also installed over 375 tubular bored piles and 2 to 3 rows of anchors at a length of up to 21 m, a total of 400 on 2-3 levels. 50 running meters of berliner walls were also installed. Because of the central location in the village, the inconvenience to the surrounding area had to be kept to a minimum, so speed and efficiency, two strengths of Votquenne Foundations, were of decisive importance. This required the use of compact but powerful machines.

Points of focus for Votquenne Foundations on this job site were the speed of work, the strict schedule, the complete study and the customized techniques the company has in place to respond quickly and appropriately in any situation.

Short implementation times

Votquenne Foundations prides itself on always being able to guarantee the shortest execution times. This is due, among other things, to the know-how and professionalism of its employees, the availability of the highest-performance machines for the job and the integration of various sub-aspects within the company. In the case of Bellecour, it needed only 30 working days to install the secant pile walls, 20 working days for the anchors and 20 working days for the bored piles. The Alinso project will take barely 3 months.