Diamond Plaza Multi-storey Building.
Diamond Plaza building is a 17-story Mixed-use building in Parklands, Nairobi, with malls, restaurants, and offices. During its construction, there was a change of design proposal by the client. The design change entailed an additional five floors on top of the original building. Somers Engineering was engaged to re-design and retrofit the building to accommodate the extra vertical extension.
The building was remodeled and analyzed with structural design software to identify the members that required retrofitting. Retrofitting methods were selected depending on the required increase in bearing capacity from the original design capacity i.e., Concrete jacketing and Carbon wrapping.
Retrofitting works were carried out in 6 months, involving wrapping with FRP (Fibre reinforced polymer) on the identified beams and columns to increase capacity to accommodate the extra loading. On members requiring a higher increment in capacity, jacketing with reinforced concrete was used. After the retrofitting works, the construction of the extra floors was planned.