Foundation designer

A Foundation Designer is an appropriately qualified professional engineer with experience suited to the project, its jurisdiction and its support concept. Civil, structural and geotechnical engineering may all be relevant, together with practical knowledge of foundation design, ground conditions and construction.

The role requires the judgement to recognise when further ground investigation or specialist input is needed. One person need not personally provide every discipline, but the Foundation Designer remains responsible for coordinating a complete definition of the ExoSett-to-support interface.

The support beneath an ExoSett building can vary enormously. A temporary building in a festival field might use screw piles or another lightweight, removable system. A more conventional project might use pads, piles or a concrete slab. At the other extreme, the building might stand on a multi-storey podium that is effectively a conventional building in its own right.

For a simple foundation, the Foundation Designer may design and specify the complete system. For a substantial podium, their role does not automatically include designing the podium building. They define what the podium must provide so that its separately appointed conventional design team can design and verify it.

The Foundation Designer is responsible for:

• reviewing the site, ground conditions and available investigations;
• identifying further investigation and specialist advice required;
• responding to the planned life of the building and the intended supporting structure;
• coordinating frame support positions, loads, movements and connection requirements;
• defining levels, datums, tolerances, anchorages and construction requirements;
• coordinating openings, shafts, penetrations and routes across the boundary;
• addressing access, inspection, maintenance and eventual removal or deconstruction; and
• providing acceptance and verification information suitable for implementation.

This is often a three-dimensional interface. Columns and anchorages may terminate at different levels while stairs, lifts, drainage, ducts, pipes, cables, ventilation and life-safety routes continue into, through or below the supporting structure.

The Building Designer establishes the overall building intent, high-level configuration and support concept. The Foundation Designer develops the support solution within those coordinated inputs rather than independently deciding the form of the building.

The Frame Designer provides the engineered frame geometry, column and node positions, reactions, movements, tolerances and frame-side connection requirements. The Foundation Designer defines the supporting side of that structural interface and coordinates the complete connection.

The Services Designer owns the building services and the interfaces through which they are supplied to accommodation modules. At the site boundary, the direction is reversed: the Foundation Designer defines the interface through which available site infrastructure or temporary plant supplies services to the Services Designer. This includes coordinated locations, routes, penetrations, capacities and site constraints, without transferring design of the building services to the Foundation Designer.

The Safety Officer identifies and assures the applicable safety and regulatory requirements. The Foundation Designer and other competent specialists remain responsible for their designs and supporting evidence.

For a substantial podium, the Foundation Designer combines the coordinated ExoSett requirements into a clear brief for the podium design team. It can cover structural load transfer, support and mounting of the lowest frame nodes, levels, tolerances, anchorages, openings, service routes, stairs, lifts and life-safety systems that cross the boundary.

The podium’s conventional design team remains responsible for the podium itself. The Foundation Designer reviews its proposals and evidence for conformity with the agreed ExoSett interface; that review does not transfer the podium team’s design responsibility.

The Foundation Designer maintains the foundation-related parts of the building specification: site and ground information, design assumptions, support geometry, loads, connections, service-entry conditions, tolerances, construction requirements, referenced calculations and drawings, inspection needs and acceptance criteria.

The Site office controls the project record and coordinates suitable suppliers, contractors, inspectors and maintainers. The Foundation Designer provides enough information for the Site office to administer procurement, construction, inspection, verification and maintenance by appropriately competent organisations.

Explore the foundation interface, or return to ExoSett project roles.