Reinforced Soil Slope Design and Construction

The Harold Court East Regional Service Center is a multi-purpose facility owned by the city of Austin, Texas that is used for material storage. Site preparation and the construction challenges of the facility are presented in detail. The facility consists of an office building and several maintenance sheds, an equipment yard and an asphalt parking lot. The terrain is steeply sloped along the south and west sides and vegetation on the site consisted of small trees, grasses, weeds, and thick underbrush. The original design for the site included a series of 9-ft gabion gravity retaining walls along the steep slope, but due to in situ soil conditions a new design was required that required a series of 9-ft gabion-faced mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) retaining walls separated by vegetated terraces. Safety, environmental protection, erosion control and structural stability were improved at the site because: (1) most of the in situ material was reused; (2) installation continued when the quantity of rock was limited until the City of Austin authorized the use of a mix of limestone rock and crushed rock as backfill; and (3) one the MSE wall systems that was Highway Innovation Technology Evaluation Center (HITEC) evaluated served as a first-stop service center to speed the introduction of innovative technologies into the highway marketplace.