Project overview
Harbourline Business Park comprises three office buildings of G+8, G+10, and G+12 arranged around a landscaped plaza, with 64,000 m² GFA, a 1,100-space two-level basement, and an on-site district cooling plant serving all three buildings. Buildora was appointed main contractor under a FIDIC Red Book (1999) lump-sum contract, with contractor's design responsibility for temporary works and the façade.
The employer required Building A to be handed over in month 18 to meet an anchor tenant's lease commencement, with Buildings B and C following at months 23 and 26 — all while two neighbouring towers remained fully occupied.
The challenge
- Excavation to −9.5 m adjacent to occupied buildings, with a high water table at −2.1 m
- Single site access shared with neighbouring tenants' service traffic
- Two summers of construction under midday work restrictions
- A shared central plant that had to be commissioned before the first handover
- GSAS Design & Build 4-star target, requiring documented material and waste performance
Our solution
We designed a secant-pile shoring wall with two levels of temporary steel props and a closed-loop dewatering system with continuous settlement monitoring of the neighbouring structures — movement stayed within 6 mm against a 15 mm trigger level. The basement was split into three pour zones so Building A's core could start while excavation continued under B and C.
Night-time delivery windows, a just-in-time concrete schedule with two batching plants, and off-site prefabricated MEP risers reduced on-site labour by 18% at peak. A federated BIM model coordinated to LOD 400 resolved 2,340 clashes before installation, and the district cooling plant was commissioned in month 16, two months ahead of the first handover.
Key milestones
- Month 0Contract award and mobilisation
- Month 5Basement raft complete in all three zones
- Month 11Building A topped out; façade installation begins
- Month 16District cooling plant commissioned
- Month 18Building A handed over — 9 days early
- Month 26Buildings B and C handed over; GSAS 4-star certificate issued
Results
- Handover
- On programme
- Lost-time injuries
- Zero
- Safe man-hours
- 2.1m
- Waste diverted
- 81%
Technical data
| Gross floor area | 64,000 m² |
|---|---|
| Structure | RC frame with post-tensioned flat slabs; secant-pile basement |
| Concrete | 48,000 m³ (C40/50, C50/60 for cores) |
| Reinforcement | 6,900 t |
| Façade | Unitised curtain wall, 21,000 m², double-glazed low-E |
| MEP | District cooling (3,600 TR), BMS, sprinklers, LV distribution |
| Peak workforce | 1,450 |
Gallery
Buildora handed over three buildings in sequence while our neighbouring tenants stayed fully operational. Weekly reporting was accurate, the snag lists were short, and the GSAS certification came through first time.