Day 2: First Site Visit and Construction Drawing Lecture

Team 1 visited the One JBR Tower. Team 2 visited the Fareed Tower 2.

During the site visit to the One JBR Tower, Team 1 was briefed by the project manager Mr. Hesham El Telety. The building being constructed is a luxury residential tower with 46 floors and 161 units. The site also includes a swimming pool, a gymnasium, and a private beach. The client for this job is Dubai Properties. This tower is unique with its cantilever steel canopy to provide a shading factor, and uneven cantilevered balconies on each level. Interior finishes include oak veneer doors, porcelain tile in the bathroom, volakas white marble throughout, and white paint walls. Students were able to see all stages of construction including: waterproofing, steel fixing, concrete pumping, concrete form work, plastering, block laying, MEP utilities, and finishes.

One JBR Tower

Team 1

During the site visit to the Fareed Tower 2, Team 2 was briefed by the project manager Mr. Mazen Hallak. We began meeting at the job site offices and Mr. Mazen introduced the site booklet and drawings to us. The project is a new luxury residential tower located at business bay with 2 basement parking levels and 19 stories plus ground level, and it makes 29890.56 m^2 in total built-up area. There are 111 no. Apartments in total, which include one bedroom, two bedroom, and three bedroom apartment. The Tower Building is formed on a raft foundation with reinforced concrete retaining walls at the basement levels with a traditional reinforced concrete superstructure and post tensioned floor slabs. After we visited the site, students did some real hand-work activities. We got the chance to try plastering. After plaster was in place, we saw the leveling process. What’s more, we also tried to lay the light weight blocks and check the level using appropriate tools.

Juliano placing light weight block

Team 2

After our site visits and lunch, we had a lecture on reading and understanding construction drawings given by Mr. Mazen Hallak. We learned about the different type of construction drawings including architectural, structural, and MEP, and the different drawing stages. Each group had a set of drawings and worked together to understand the different annotations and spot differences between design revisions. At night, Mr.Abdallah took us to a really fancy Lebanese restaurant called Al Safadi, and he ordered every single dish on the menu. The food kept coming and coming, we all ate a lot and felt really full. It was a great night!