Capability 04 / The Work Underneath
Every playground, pump track and trail we hand over is standing on work nobody photographs. Cut, fill, retain, drain, then finish the street around it. Get this wrong and the visible work fails within a year. We don't let that happen.
41.2865 S / 174.7762 E
The unglamorous part
Civil and groundworks is the part of the job that's finished before most people know we were there. It's the cut and fill that gets a site level enough to build on, the retaining that keeps a slope where it's supposed to stay, and the drainage that decides whether a space is usable in July or a mud pit until October.
We treat it the same way we treat the visible work: engineered properly, built for Wellington ground and Wellington weather, and signed off before the next trade starts on top of it. Get the groundworks right and the playground, the trail or the streetscape above it just works, season after season, without anyone thinking about what's underneath.
What's covered
Scoped and priced alongside the visible build, not bolted on after.
Cut, fill and engineered retaining that holds a Wellington slope where it needs to stay, load-rated for the structures built above it.
Stormwater, subsoil drainage and the underground services a public space depends on, run before a single surface goes down.
Kerbs, paving and the streetscape detailing that ties a project into the footpath and road it sits beside.
Where it actually gets tested
Wellington doesn't hand out flat, dry sites. Most of what we build sits on a slope, near the coast, or both, which means the groundworks have to do real work before the finish ever shows.
Access solutions and retaining that last. Retaining is engineered to the grade, not guessed at.
Drainage, stability and durability in all weathers. Drainage is designed in before anything is paved over it.
On the register: Streetscape works, Aro Valley
Talk to us about the earthworks, retaining or drainage behind your next project.
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