Week 2: Day 1

First Site Visit and LEED Lecture

Today Team 1 visited the Jumeirah Village Residential Building job site while Team 2 visited the Fareed Tower site.

During the site visit to the Jumeirah Village Residential Building, Team 1 was fortunate enough to be introduced to the project by Project Manager Jihad Choueiri. We began in the project meeting room in the job site offices and were introduced to the site booklet and drawings which detailed the planned construction which would take place on the site. From the meeting room, we progressed to the job site which was located on a diagonally adjacent plot. The decision was made for this job that the full area would be excavated at once, which created the need for an office location which was on another plot of land. When we visited the site, the construction process was at a standstill due to the de-watering process not being approved to begin. Currently the municipal water system into which the extracted water would discharge was operating near capacity, and would not be able to handle the water which would be pumped from the Residential Building site. The project had been delayed ten days by this point, and was beginning to become a major threat to the timely completion of the project.

The de-watering system used at the Jumeirah Village Residential Building site.

Our next topic of discussion was the excavation process and shoring system used during this process. During excavation steel I-sections were driven to a depth of 17 meters. Then, as excavation increased in depth, concrete planks spanning 2 meters were inserted between the I-sections to form a shoring system which would prevent soil from entering the excavation site.

The excavation site and shoring system at the Jumeirah Village Residentail Building site.

Following the examination of the excavation and shoring, we were shown the various site signage and safety precautions taken around the site. A large signboard is posted outside every job site which details the various companies involved in the project and what the project consists of. Additionally, lights are positioned around the site to facilitate nighttime work. Lastly, we examined the safety signboard which details the multitude of hazards one may encounter on a construction site and the precautions one should take in order to avoid injury.

DCC safety signboard on site

DCC project signboard outside of the site

While Team 1 was at the Jumeirah Village Residential Building site, Team 2 was exploring Fareed Tower.

Following the morning site visits, both teams returned to the office and ate an interesting lunch.

After lunch we took a tough quiz. Most did well overall, but we did not find out our results until the next morning.

Following the quiz, we had a lecture on LEED and sustainable construction from the always informative Mr. Ian Harper. In this lecture, we were introduced to the principles of the LEED certification program, and also learned about new and exciting sustainable engineering projects such as Masdar City, which is a fully self-sufficient and fossil fuel free city being built outside of Abu Dhabi.

Rendering of Masdar City