How we’d build it

Worked examples of how we think through a site: what the ground and the buildings next door allow, which support fits, the order of work, who carries what, and a budget range priced from our published book. Each one is a composite, so you can see the reasoning without anyone’s project being on show.

Illustrative example — composite site, not a completed ESC project.

• Underpinning · Groundwater overlay · Party walls

  Lowering a rowhouse cellar over timber piles, inside the groundwater overlay

  A mid-row brick rowhouse on filled land, its walls on granite over timber piles, with the groundwater about a foot above the pile tops. How we'd take the cellar floor down about two feet without moving the water, or the piles.

  How we’d approach it
• Underpinning · Tight side yards · Hand work

  Digging out a triple-decker basement with three- and five-foot side yards

  A wood-frame three-family on a narrow lot, with the next houses a few feet off each side. How we'd underpin the whole perimeter by hand, one short bay at a time, so the basement floor can come down about two and a half feet.

  How we’d approach it
• Soldier pile & lagging · Cantilever wall · Slope where there's room

  Shoring an infill basement with the neighbor four feet away

  A new four-storey building with a full basement on a double-width lot, an old masonry neighbor four feet past the line and open ground elsewhere. How we'd put a wall only where one is needed — drilled, cantilevered, nothing under the neighbor — and lay the rest of the cut back.

  How we’d approach it
• Underpinning · Party walls · Restricted access

  Underpinning two party walls in a hilltop rowhouse, by hand

  A brick rowhouse near the top of a drumlin, attached on both sides, with the rear of its cellar coming down about three and a half feet. How we'd underpin the lowered length of both party walls with hand-dug pits, working in through the front door.

  How we’d approach it
• Rock removal · Line drilling · Vibration control

  Taking out ledge five feet from an occupied brick building

  A new building's basement cuts into hard ledge a few feet from a c. 1900 masonry building that stays occupied. How we'd line-drill the face nearest the building and split the rock beside it, and leave the hammer for the far side of the lot.

  How we’d approach it
• Soldier pile & lagging · Tiebacks · Street permissions

  Holding a garage excavation along a city street, with tiebacks under the public way

  A mid-rise building over a one-level garage that runs to the sidewalk. How we'd hold the street side with soldier piles and one row of tiebacks, once the City agrees they can go under the street, and brace the neighbor's side from inside the hole.

  How we’d approach it