The Most Stoutly Constructed Cement Storage Domes in the World

摘要

In 2013 Holcim New Zealand (Holcim), now a member of LafargeHolcim, set out to design and build two bulk cement storage domes in New Zealand. Their thorough evaluation of various types of storage structures resulted in selecting concrete domes. Holcim embarked on a quest to first select an engineering firm, a general contractor, and eventually a dome supplier. Beca was selected as the engineer, and Downer Group (Downer) as the general contractor. Straight away this team embarked on an intense search to identify the right dome building contractor. Telephone conversations, video conference calls, air form samples, marketing pieces and iterations of the proposals flew through air and cyberspace culminating in Holcim and their design build team visiting various prospective dome builder's installations, main offices, and their engineers. Four dome builders from around the world were thoroughly considered and evaluated. The criteria compared included the companies' respective health and safety, design, construction and quality. In the end, Domtec was chosen as the preferred dome vendor in a 'Best for Project' approach (Downer Group, 2014) to build two 30 0001 cement storage domes, one to be built on the North Island and one on the South Island.