Totara Primary School, Oamaru

Totara School is a primary school based five minutes south of Oamaru. It is one of the oldest schools in New Zealand and was first opened in 1883.

JDBuilders won the tender from the Ministry of Education to set out and build the foundations for the new learning space for the school which is a portable house and will be transported once we have completed the foundations.

This required digging ten holes for the piles after calculating where our string lines were required for the new building, four of these holes were anchor piles.

The standard holes as requested by the architects were 450mm deep and the anchor ones 950mm deep with the piles at 1650 centres maximum. All the piles were braced and plumbed ready for the concrete to be poured. Once the concrete has cured, the piles will be cut to the exact height using a laser.

Once the portable learning space has been positioned onto the piles, we will anchor the building to the piles, take out a series of glass windows adjoining this new structure, and build a new deck to join between an existing building and the new learning space.