Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ABSTRACT:
The effectiveness in site layout and construction planning for extremely large-scale and complicated con-
struction projects not only affects productivity and cost, it also controls whether a project can be handled and
completed in a practical, safe, orderly, efficient and engineering feasible manner.
Projects qualified to be extremely large and complicated can be in a variety of forms. Take for examples in
Hong Kong’s situation. Construction cost of projects sometimes exceeds billions of dollars. Site covers more
than a few hectares of land with building areas in term of hundred thousands square meters. Or, projects
sometimes involve the construction of super high -rise buildings with more that 60 or 70 storeys in height. This
kind of building development projects, very often, consists of a number of annexed facilities such as a very
deep basement, or a podium with very large interior space and long-span elements. Special structures like
buildings constructed in structural steel or in composite manner. Some projects are located within very
congested urban environment, or located in close proximity to steep slope, or adjacent to sensitive facilities
like underground tunnels. In case of civil engineering projects, sometimes they also involve special provisions,
diversion and interfacing arrangement to very busy servicing traffic and other urban facilities.
This paper will identify various types of construction cases qualified to be of extremely large and complicated
nature under the built environment of Hong Kong. The paper will also illustrate how builders solve such
problems using innovative methods. Relevant brief case examples from civil engineering works in particular
for transportation facilities will also be referred in order to substantiate the explanation of the subject matter.
1 INTRODUCTION
a) Items or facilities
Usually when we are that are essential
talking about site layout and required for the
facili-ties we refer to carrying out of the
essential temporary construction works
facilities that are such as cranage, site
required to be provided transportation
during the period of equipments,
con-struction in order to falsework as
assist in the completion temporary support
of the construction or to facilitate
works. Site layout various storage
facilities and con- purposes, or the
struction planning allocation of
usually has a close temporary work
relationship for some of spaces for work
the major construction vehicles, work-
activities are highly shops, sub-
depended on the contractor yards and
provision of these other essential site
facilities in order to activities.
have the works b) Items or facilities
completed effectively, that are required for
ef-ficiently and the well being,
according to a convenience or
complicated schedule safety of workers
which in most cases is
such as
set under a well
washing/changing
coordinated manner. In
rooms, shelter or
a general sense, these
rest facilities for
facilities include:
workers, canteen,
access to work
fronts, or other
safety provisions.
c) Items or facilities that are required for the overall that are required by the concerning statutory
site logistics, operation and management such as requirements. These facilities include, for ex-
site entrance provision, site office, meeting or ample, the site fencing, supply and routing of
conference areas, supply and routing of essential water, surface drainage system, forming and
services, site laboratory, or other security provi- arrangement of access routing, setting up of
sions. site offices, arrangement for the delivery and
d) Items that are statutory required for the carrying positioning of the essential work equipments,
of the construction works such as fencing or and other provisions as required by relevant
hoarding, signage, wheel washing facility; statutory requirements.
equipment for waste disposal, water treatment, b) At the peak period of the construction project when
noise and dust control, or arrangement for tem- the permanent structural works are to be carried
porary traffic diversion etc. out.
Facilities to be set-up at this stage are more
These facilities usually have specific work targets specific for the carrying out of particular
or operation nature, however, they still have the fol- works, some of them are more temporary in
lowing characteristics in common: nature. Examples of these facilities include the
tower crane, workers lift, material hoist, access
a) Essential or not easy to be substituted for the provision to working fronts, work scaffold,
carrying out of the specific construction works, temporary platform, falsework or additional
b) Fairly temporary in nature, support to the required structures, and other
equipments or mounting up which are required
c) The positioning of these facilities often affects for the external works of the building such as a
the efficiency of the construction in particular power wincher system for the installation of
when they are not properly located, curtain wall units which is operated on a tem-
d) The positioning of the facilities often occupy porarily provided track rail.
significant work spaces and may affect the regu- c) At the final stage of the project when the
lar progress of other major activities, touching up, finishing works or other handing
e) Often required to be relocated to meet the ad- over arrangement are to be carried out.
vancement of works or progress of construction, At this stage of construction majority of the
f) Some of these facilities may have very important site layout facilities are required to dismantle
operational, structural or safety concerns, and remove from site. For some particular
equipments or facilities, some kind of addi-
g) The provision, installation and maintenance of
tional provisions may be required to assist in
these facilities can be quite timely and costly
the dismantling of them. For example, a
thus the providing, relocating, maintaining or winching machine and a lifting rod may be
dismantling of these facilities should be planned erected and set on the roof level to help the
in a very careful manner in order not to inter- dismantling of a tower crane and lowering its
rupted with the master planning of the construc- components down to the ground level for re-
tion works. moval. And of course, provision for the touch-
ing up of the disturbed areas after the disman-
2 INTRODUCTION PROVISION OF SITE tling and removal of the facilities is also
LAYOUT FACILITIES required.
B, Provision of major site layout facilities according
Provision of site layout facilities can be further clas- to types of construction
sified according to stages of construction and types Site layout facilities is relatively a general term
of project. Below are some of the examples of these for the setting up and operation of a construction
classifications and provisions. site for the nature, scale and type of works diver-
sify greatly from project to project. Situation for
A. Provision of site layout facilities according to building projects is relative much simpler when
stages of construction compare to civil projects. Below are the high-
a) At the commencement of the construction pro- lights of some of their feature according to the
ject types of construction.
Site layout facilities to be set-up at this stage a) Building projects involve the construction of
usually include provisions that must be pro- super high-rise tower/s in a relatively confined
vided before the effective carrying out of other site. The site layout facilities for this kind of
major construction works, or other work items projects, for example, include:
(i) Facilities and work spaces for the delivery
of construction materials or placing of con-
crete,
(ii) tower crane, mainly to assist work activi-
ties on floor-top work front,
adjacent to slope
or sensitive
structures either
at grade or
Photo 2 – Storage of underground. The
material can be very involved facilities
difficult for sin-gle tower
for this kind of
Photo 3 – Delivery and
type high-rise building.
project, for
storage of precast
example, include:
This photo shows the components for
temporary storing of congested site can be
semi-prefabricated steel very difficult in
components on partially particular when the
completed steel floor sequence of installation
beams is taken into
Photo 1 – Tower crane consideration.
used in high-rise building
construc-tion projects can
be mounted in a number
(v)loading
of ways. This photo
platform on
shows a climbing crane
intermediate
used in the construction
floors for the
of a steel frame building.
removal of
materials such
as formwork
panels or Photo 4 – Super-sized
(iii) hoisting propping building site (the
equipment (for components to International Fi-nance
delivery of other floors, Centre) with major
(vi) temporary excavation for basement
mate-rials or
workers hoist construc-tion and other
components to
or lift, associated work activities
structurally
in various locations carried
com-pleted (vii) safety out at the same time.
floors), provisions in
(iv) handling particular
spaces for setting up to
building prevent
materials and workers or
semi- materials
completed falling from
components height etc.
including pre- b) Large-sized
cast items, building projects
(Photo 2) in particular with
very large site
area or involves
works on site
with complicated
shape or layout.
This in-cludes,
for example,
deep and large-
scale ex-
cavation, work
Photo 5 – Another super-sized project example located on
sloping site with site formation, cut-off walling and
foundation works carried out at the same time. Site access is Photo 7 – Special layout and equipments provision for the
a primary problem in the project. construction of large-size basement is required such as the
use of a spoil removal hoist in this 5-level basement con-
structed in top-down method.
(i) Similar to site layout facilities as described
in the above but with the addition of some
other facilities such as access road and (iv) Handling or storage area in particular for
equipments for site internal transportation. intermediate materials handling purposes.
(ii) Set-up for temporary shoring works for the (v)Waste water treatment facilities due to the
protection of deep excavation, slope cutting collection of surface or construction waste
or sensitive structure. water from the large area of site.
(vi) Other environmental protection related fa-
cilities such as dust screen, catch fan or
noise barrier.
(c)Various types of large-scale and complicated
civil projects. Examples of these types of pro-
jects include site formation, slope treatment,
marine works, water supply or drainage works,
highways projects, railway construction, tun-
nel works, bridge construction, and other in-
frastructure development projects.
Site layout provisions for civil work projects
are often in a highly dynamic nature due to the
involved works are mainly in a horizontally-
spread layout without a lot of tall and inde-
Photo 6 – A commercial development located in congested pendent structures. Equipments or facilities
built-up area with the basement work in the peak period. involved are usually different for various kinds
Complicated shoring and ground supporting works can idle of civil works but in general they are very
a congested site for months unless stringent site layout heavy duty in nature for the requirement to
planning arrangement is introduced handle huge amount of materials or very heavy
components, or for the supporting of very large
loading. Very large operating space and
(iii) Involve the construction of a large-size additional equipments are normally required
and deep basement using sophisticated for the erection, maneuvering, operation and
method such as in top-down or other hybrid dismantling of these facilities. Below are some
approach. of the examples of these facilities that are used
in civil engineering works:
(i) Temporary accesses for work machines or
manual workers. These accesses can be
erected over water, over large area of undu-
lated surfaces, down to deep excavation
pits, climb to great height or span between
very tall structures (e.g. bridge towers), or tional work spaces (elevated or suspended),
provide access to very steep slope. for the support of long-span reinforced con-
crete structure which is constructed in in-
situ manner, support for a working platform
over an open -cut basement excavation pit,
or as support to freshly concreted structure
preparing for the temporary placing of addi-
tional loadings etc.
earth-work, where access
conveyor problem for
systems, both delivery
cranes, of the machine
launching or the removal
equipment, of excavated
portal frame, spoil away
hydraulic from the work
Photo 8 – The construction trolley or jack spot always
of a 1.2 km-long temporary systems etc. exist. They will
ramp above sea surface to Sometimes, be stationed in
facilitate the construction of such provi- one location
the bridge piers for an sions may even within a short
elevated expressway.. include the period and
setting up of required to be
temporary Photo 10 – Typical removed at the
unloading falsework arrangement earliest time
facilities such erected for the support of when the work
as a pier for a pier head for the has been
marine works construction of a section completed for
or for the of viaduct. Note that part the onward
delivery of of the system is erected progress of the
large and over a sec-tion of water other works.
heavy channel.
materials
transported to
site by sea. (iv) Site layout
And of course, and equipments
Photo 9 – Provision of a an appropriate for large scale
ac-cess routing earthworks, site
steel ramp from the portal
should also be formation or
area down into a tunnel provided for foundation
constructed using drill-and- the working works. A large
blast method. and handling number of very
of these large work
(ii) Equipments machines such
equipments.
and provisions as excavating
for the trans- (iii) Falsework
system for machines,
portation and graders, rock
lifting of bulky various
purposes such crushing
or very heavy machines,
materials such as support for
dumper trucks,
as excavated temporary
conveyor
spoil materials, work plat-form
system, drilling
structural steel, for machine equip-ments,
precast or stationing, for piling rack or
semi- material foundation
completed handling and equip-ments for
components. storage, large diameter
These materials provision of piles are
sometimes can addi- involved in
weigh up to these kind of
hundreds of projects. These
tons. The in- equipments are
volved often required
equipments, for to work in
example, can difficult typo-
be various graphic
types of work condition
machines for
Photo 11 – The use of large-sized foundation machine such Photo 13 – Erection of a launching gantry in a highway pro-
2
as the Reverse Circulation Drill to form large diame-ter ject which took 2 months and a 3000 m work area for the
bored pile occupies a large operation space including areas completion of the works.
for the working of the associated equipments.