It’s not every day that a new public art display graces the lawn of the SLO Museum of Art, and RRM was happy to help with this one. The RRM structural team provided a temporary foundation in the form of helical piers to support this 8,000 lb sculpture that is 19’ wide x 16’ deep x 10’-2” tall.
The museum wanted to avoid a large concrete footing in the middle of the lawn since the statue is only slated to be in SLO for 6 months. Our team designed the temporary foundation for both gravity forces and seismic forces (force = mass x acceleration. Acceleration = earthquake. That thing is heavy!) The temporary foundation consists of helical piers by AB Chance and the installation was performed by JR Spencer construction. See the photo below to give you an idea of what they are. Steel shaft, steel discs, driven into the ground to find better soils below the surface. Each helical pier is capable of supporting 45,000 pounds! We have four. When the statue is removed, they will just come back and reverse the helical piers back out of the ground. Patch the grass and call it a day!
Get out and see it before November 7th!
