Featured Project: Kempinski Hotel Resort
Location: Cabritts Bay, Dominica
Budget: $164,000,000
This project, which was managed by Range Developments, consisted of eighteen (18) buildings, varying in size and shape, scattered across the proposed job site. These included apartment buildings, guest room buildings, a beach club, a kids club, a presidential suite, a main building, some large outdoor pools and some other smaller structures. All of the buildings on site were primarily irregularly shaped and were designed to be constructed in reinforced concrete using the FORSA formwork system. A careful re-assessment of the soil conditions allowed the client to make an informed decision as to whether to proceed with the project on that site or relocate. The site conditions varied from soft, low bearing capacity conditions on one end to competent, high bearing capacity conditions on the other end. This prompted the use of ductile iron micro-piles in the soft soils and traditional strip footings in the more competent soils.
Some noteworthy features about this project included;
- Contract administration – Concrete Works | Roofing Works | Timber Works | External Works
- Undercroft – Several of the buildings required a suspended ground floor. This was done using Spancast CONTEC joists and filler blocks
- Cold-Formed Steel Construction – This was done for the roofs over the apartments and guest room buildings
- Convoluted Design – The main building proved to be most complicated building to understand with its massive footprint, high variation in elevation for each floor level and high degree of variability
- Forsa Modulation – The buildings shape and dimensions did not fit in with the standard modulation from FORSA and as a result, specific FORSA modulations had to be done in order to proceed with the works.
