VALUE: 387 Million COMPLETED: October 2004 SCALE: 500,000 Sq. M. DURATION: 24 months

 

This large design and build project consisted of 208 – acre three themed gated community, inspired by the beauty of the desert and the grace of the Arabian Gazelle incorporates elements from traditional Arabic and Spanish architecture.

This project consists of 1370 villas and accounts for the first 5 phases of the Springs development in the Emirates Hills community, a sought-after community in Dubai set amidst scenic lakes and lush landscaping. The Springs community features single-family semi detached villas to blocks of 2, 4, 6 and 8 houses. There were 36 different elevations for the villas and 4 different layouts. A 45.5 km boundary wall for the villas was also constructed. Structure and MEP was carried out on a design and build basis.

KEY CHALLENGES

• First challenge was to speed up the construction to meet the tight schedule from EMAAR by redesigning the foundation from an isolated footing with column necks and tie beams to raft foundation with ring ground beams around the block.

• Second, challenge was to change the design of the boundary wall from isolated footing and tie beams, columns and block work to cast-in-situ concrete walls.

• Both above mentioned changes were costlier, no claim was raised.

• The third and main challenge was to work in parallel with the infrastructure contractor which required a lot of coordination to agree and minimize the delays due to deep underground services.