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Structural Design · 2025Riverside Apartments
A builder starting a 12-unit apartment block on soft soil needed foundations and a frame that were safe without being over-designed — delivered in three weeks, before the excavation permit.
The challenge
Riverside’s plot had good frontage and doubtful soil — a filled low-lying pocket with a high water table. The builder’s old thumb-rule footings would either have settled or eaten the budget, and the excavation permit was eight weeks out.
There was no room for redesign loops. They needed one safe, economical structural package — foundations, columns, beams and slabs — that the approving authority would clear on first submission.
- Client — Riverside Developers, Montreal
- Scope — Foundations, RCC frame, structural drawings
- Timeline — Three weeks, spring 2025
- Service — Structural Design
Soil first, economical everywhere else.
Bearing capacity from the soil report set the footing sizes; the frame was then tuned bay by bay so no beam ran deeper than needed. Two framing options were presented; the chosen one was detailed across foundations, columns and slabs in week two, with every bar placed exactly where the site team could fix it.
Approved first review, poured without changes.
The authority cleared the set in one review. Footings were cast exactly to drawing, the frame rose without a single redesign, and the package is now the builder’s template for plot two. See the full scope in Structural Design.