Museum of Modern Art "berlin modern", Berlin

The new Museum of Modern Art "berlin modern" of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is being built at Berlin's Kulturforum according to the design of the competition winners Herzog & de Meuron with Vogt Landscape Architects.
PORR Spezialtiefbau realised the challenging excavation pit with an extension of approx. 125 m x 75 m. The base of the trough excavation was sealed using the jet grouting method. 

In general, Berlin is a challenging terrain for specialised civil engineering. The soil is very permeable and the groundwater table is very high. This is why excavation pits of this type are constructed as watertight troughs. In the construction site for the Museum der Moderne "berlin modern", the layered structure consisted of sandy backfill with building rubble and solid construction elements, upper valley sands and gravels, boulder clay and lower valley sands and gravels. The trough walls were constructed with diaphragm walls up to a depth of approx. 25 metres and secured with around 500 grouted anchors. Where no anchors could be drilled, the excavation pit was secured on the inside with steel pipe stiffeners. A total of 200 tonnes of steel were used for this, with the pipes measuring up to 42 m in length and 1 m in diameter.

Secure sealing with a DSV sealing base

The excavation pit was sealed at the bottom with a medium-height DSV sealing base measuring around 8,000 m², which was anchored back against buoyancy with around 1,000 micro-grouted piles. The injection piles have to bind an enormous soil package, which is why drilling lengths of around 40 metres had to be overcome in some cases. The DSV sealing base was a safe solution thanks to its customised adaptation to the subsoil. The piles also serve to secure the building against buoyancy. 

Inner-city construction with gentle methods

Only low-impact methods are used for inner-city construction. Not only are expertise and accurate planning important here, but also the use of state-of-the-art equipment that operates with low noise levels. The diaphragm wall method enables low-noise and vibration-free construction.