On the day when the first fully built apartment fitted in accordance with the project was presented in Valmiera’s new rental apartment building, MONUM Chairman of the Board Māris Ozoliņš gave an interview to the “Liesma” regional newspaper about both rental buildings being built in Valmiera and the specifics of the work involved, including the problems faced by the builders and their solutions on a national scale.

From the perspective of the MONUM company, how interesting and, perhaps complicated, is this project in Valmiera, comprised of two rental buildings with a total of 150 apartments?

In terms of the degree of difficulty involved, construction of apartment buildings is not that complicated. MONUM has built much more complex objects such as boiler houses with large megawatt capacities, external engineering networks, hydro structures, indoor engineering networks, swimming pools and gyms. We have also fully rebuilt streets with all the underground communications. Let’s say that apartment buildings have to be built correctly! Because this involves the use of three-layer reinforced concrete panels. This is the most significant aspect of the assembly process so that they are assembled correctly and so that cracks don’t appear subsequently once they’re in service. As we can see, there are no cracks in this apartment; all the joint points are perfectly straight.  The technologies we’re using in Valmiera are currently being widely used in Scandinavia. These buildings are energy efficient, environmentally friendly and good acoustics indoors. From the perspective of complexity, although this is not our most difficult project, for us builders it’s an interesting and pleasant assignment.

It’s no secret that during the course of construction work, certain problems arose with the load-bearing capacity of the foundations of the three-block building at Ķieģeļu Street 8. This probably required additional investments on the part of the builders. Would this dissuade the MONUM company from participating in similar construction procurement competitions in Valmiera? As we know, the municipality would like to expand the new apartment rental market to 1,000 apartments. Therefore, construction in this neighbourhood will continue.

No, it would not put us off. I have experienced such things on many projects. We have experienced more critical situations involving greater problems. Having worked in the construction industry for 15 years, there have been instances of buildings subsiding and buildings oscillating, but here in Valmiera, it was not that bad. No cracks appeared in any of the ready constructions; there were not even tiny cracks. Together with the building’s constructors, we promptly concluded that a solution was required. Despite the fact that initial measurements showed that all the soil was replaced and packed, and that everything had been done as required.