Istanbul mega-project needs waterproofing to keep the ocean at bay

Vadistanbul is Turkey's largest industrial and urban transformation project. When completed, it will have a shopping mall with hundreds of stores, street shops, office space and a five-star hotel.

The site is located close to the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus. That means a high water table. In fact, water can be found at a depth of only three meters. So it is essential to completely and reliably waterproof the 22-metre deep basements.

For the Vadistanbul Boulevard part of the project, the contractor used our PREPRUFE® waterproofing solutions. In fact, they used 90,000 m² of the membrane to provide superb protection to all built elements up to levels above the water table. That included over 3,000 foundation piles.

Project Profile

Keeping water out of a concert hall's basement

Lovely music in the concert hall upstairs? Yes. Water coming into the basement downstairs? Not so good.

That's the situation the designers of the Green Music Center at Sonoma State University wanted to avoid. Why? The concert hall entrance sits at ground level. But the hall slopes downward, below grade, toward the stage. Plus, several feet of space needed for the building's air supply extend the depth even farther.

There was also a high water table just a few feet below the surface. So the Green Music Center designers chose PREPRUFE® waterproofing membrane in the structure. They also used BITUTHENE® waterproofing on the exterior basement walls. As a result, everything stays dry. Music to our ears.

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Our waterproofing solutions help former BBC headquarters become a spectacular new development

Television Centre was the headquarters of BBC Television until 2013. The site went under redevelopment to include apartments, offices, restaurants and leisure and retail buildings.

A varying water table calls for specific requirements to prevent water migration. The site also contains a complex maze of inverted bends and horizontal paths. Access comes in from a mix of residential, commercial, leisure and retail buildings. That requires a complete matrix of fabricated movement joints.

The contractors chose our PREPRUFE® and ADPRUFE® waterproofing solutions as well as SERVISEAL® waterstop to protect the expansion joins in the concrete. In total, about 19,000 m² of PREPRUFE® and 6,000 m³ of watertight concrete enhanced with ADPRUFE® was used on the site.