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Construction projects in Abu Dhabi are setting new standards in scope and innovation. Hugo Berger visited the Capital Plaza Development to learn about the ground-breaking techniques needed to build one of the city’s first mega-projects.

As its pace of development heats up, mega-projects are becoming the norm in Abu Dhabi.

Recently, enormous schemes have begun to transform the islands surrounding the capital into vast developments.

But there are also a number of ongoing schemes in the city centre itself.

One of the first to be launched was the Capital Plaza Development in The Corniche area of the city.

The building is being constructed by Arabian Construction Company (ACC) for its client Real Estate Investment and Services (Reisco).

When finished it will consist of five towers, reaching up to 45 storeys.

Construction Week visited the site and met Ashraf Bazzouni, senior project manager, ACC.

He says there had been a number of challenges in constructing the building, especially as it was leading the way in the city's building boom.

Perhaps the most taxing of these had been the size and location of the site.

The plot is 13,000m², with the buildings taking up 9,300m² of this.

This is particularly small, with an average size plot being about 15,000m².

Work is made even trickier by the proximity of the surrounding buildings - the nearest one is only 7m from the site.

Bazzouni says because of this, a high level of coordination was needed to make sure the project ran smoothly.

He says: "At the moment there are about 1,400 workers on site, but at its peak there will be around 3,000.

"It's almost like having a large family sharing a studio apartment.

"But it is going to get even more crowded when the civil work is finished and the sub-contractors move in.

"We are having to coordinate things very, very carefully to make sure everything can work well and safely."

Because of the site's short distances from roads and pavements, safety has been the number one priority for the construction team.

Bazzouni says: "Prior to construction we do a risk assessment on safety for all the activities to check what the safety hazards are.

"Formwork and concrete pouring is one of the most critical activities at height, especially in a congested area like this.

"The probability of having an accident is high so we are very stringent in applying safety on the site.

"Fortunately, we have been mainly accident-free although there have been some small incidents which we are dealing with on a one-to-one basis.

"The likelihood of accidents is very high, so we have to pursue all the precautions we can to make sure people inside and outside the site are not injured."

Because of the small size of the site and its relatively lofty heights, extra deep foundations work was needed.

However, during the excavation work engineers found that the soil conditions were not good enough to meet the strength required to support the building.

A third party engineer confirmed this fear and the project was suspended for seven months.

During this time, the construction team went back to the drawing board and came up with new plans.

It was decided that the only way to support the weight was to build an extra-thick diaphragm wall to reduce the amount of piling.

The diaphragm wall, when built, was 2.1m thick, which Bazzouni claims was the thickest ever made in the world.

He says: "This is unique for this project and I don't think it has happened anywhere else in the world.

"It had to be so thick because of the shape of development and the proximity of the buildings.

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