THE Durban University of Technology (DUT) has identified their Indumiso Campus at Imbali, Pietermaritzburg, as a key investment point for the training of built environment graduates.
DUT appointed SMEC South Africa as the consulting structural and civil engineers to design and supervise their Phase 2 expansion project. SMEC’s Urban and Social Development sector provides specialist management and engineering consulting services to various academic institutions and organs of state.
The project included three new buildings, a storm water attenuation facility and associated external infrastructure services. The storm water attenuation structure is disguised as an amphitheatre and student recreational area.
The buildings comprised of a new triple-storey engineering block, double storey lecture block and a triple storey library, each boasting a unique and separate engineering design technique.
Design of the façades and curtain walls ensured that the library block becomes the focal point of the campus. The Engineering Faculty block compromised a 10m x 7.5m support grid with the use of un-bonded post tensioned flat slabs. Stacked lecture venues were achieved with the use of bridge beam design techniques to form a suspended slab over a 15m x 20m room with no internal supports.
A staircase inside the new library had to be designed with no intermediate supports. The 15m structure is supported off ‘sky-hooks’.
Foundation challenges were overcome with engineered fill in lieu of expensive piling techniques. The Indumiso Campus was officially opened in June 2018.