Speaker Biography:

Mr. Deschamps is Vice President of Engineering with Nicholson Construction, the North American subsidiary of Paris-based Soletanche-Bachy, one of the world’s premier geotechnical general contractors. He is responsible for overall engineering and quality control efforts with emphasis on design build, alternative design, and value engineering efforts.  He plays a lead role in recruiting and training of technical staff.  His academic and consulting engineering experience provides Nicholson with significant capabilities in advanced analyses and in the understanding of soil and rock behavior.  His experience includes design, quality control and implementation of projects involving deep foundations, retaining structures, ground improvement, ground modification, slope stabilization, and earth-fill and concrete gravity dams. 

Mr. Deschamps holds a Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering from Purdue University and a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering from University of South Florida.  Mr. Deschamps is a registered professional engineer in the states of Kentucky, Indiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Florida. 

Topic Description:

This case study will discuss the renovation to the Historic Provo City Temple in Provo, Utah that suffered significant damage from a fire in December of 2010. As part of the rebuild, the Church of Latter-Day Saints wanted to add a two-story underground addition underneath the existing at-grade structure. Nicholson was contracted to provide a design/build solution which allowed the existing remaining brick façade to be underpinned in-place allowing the General Contractor to construct the substructure 35-feet beneath the façade.

The novel design approach employed by Nicholson provided a micropile underpinning system that supported the Temple façade 35 ft in the air allowing the substructure to be built. In addition, a large trenching machine was employed to construct a 50 ft deep cutoff wall around the perimeter of the work zone in order to limit the potential impact of the dewatering efforts. 

This case study will present the engineering and construction efforts that went behind the reconstruction of this significant temple for the Church of Latter-Day Saints.