쌍용건설

[K-Construction: Transcending COVID-19 to Expand Across the World]
Dubai's Latest Landmark: Royal Atlantis Resort and Residences

 

Dubai is a fierce battleground for global contractors, each competing on the basis of their construction technology and design expertise. It is often said that a landmark building in Dubai automatically attains the stature of a global landmark.

Over the past decade, the city has become home to 120 landmark-worthy buildings of 50 floors or more, and has spent a staggering USD 53 billion on their construction alone.

At the center of such cut-throat competition is Ssangyong E'C. Next year, with the completion of the Royal Atlantis Resort and Residences, the company will, once again, make its name known throughout the world.  

 

 

Dubai’s Representative Landmark Hotel to Open in October 2021

 

Royal Atlantis Resort and Residences is a mega project involving the construction of one 44-story luxury hotel building and one 38-story upscale residence building on the Palm Jumeirah, an artificial archipelago off the coast of Dubai.

This project was ordered by the Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds and also the largest shareholder of Ssangyong E&C. As a primary contractor, the company won the contract in December 2015 in partnership with Belgium-based BESIX Group. The project is valued at an astonishing USD 840 million.

Construction began in July 2016 and is scheduled to finish in October next year. As of October 2020, the project is some 80 percent complete and entering its final stages.

This resort complex features 795 hotel rooms and 231 residence units. Seen from the sky, the entire structure is S-shaped seen from the front, it resembles stacked Lego blocks. The hotel and residences are actually two independent buildings connected by an 80-meter-high skybridge.

Each section of the complex will be linked by 14 “sky courts” (open spaces in the middle of the buildings), and the complex will feature some 190 swimming pools and gardens for hotel guests and residents. At the same time, large aquariums will be installed at three sites within the complex, including the hotel lobby.  

The unique design of the complex has presented unparalleled challenges. “There are hardly any buildings in the world featuring curved Lego-like blocks, Site Manager Seung Pyo Han said. “The structure is so complicated that even the 33,000 wall finishing panels are all curved.”

“The most difficult task was lifting the staggering 1,500-ton skybridge from the ground to a height of 50 meters before installing it between the two buildings,” Han noted. “Even BESIX Group, our joint venture partner, was shocked, commenting that this project was much harder than the construction of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower with 163 floors.”

 

 

The First Adoption of QR Codes at a Construction Site
7.3 Million Workers Recording 42 Million Accident-free Man-hours of Construction

 

To manage this mega construction site, Ssangyong E&C took advantage of a digital construction management platform. Co-developed with Sablono, a German construction management software developer, the platform allows users to easily check the progress of each construction process via their smartphones.

More specifically, an on-site worker can identify the status of each construction process by scanning QR codes on the walls of a building.

“With some 2,700 QR codes placed in hotel rooms, corridors, and other work areas, on-site workers now receive and send status reports in real time,” a company official said. “With our smart platform, workers in charge of the subsequent construction process can immediately be informed when the previous construction process is completed, for a quick and smooth transition.”

The platform has significantly enhanced productivity at the project site, where some 10,000 construction workers carry out work at some 3,300 different work areas daily. With this advanced technology, the company has overcome communication limitations inherent at mega construction sites.

Over the course of the past 51 months, Ssangyong E&C has recorded no accidents, which led the company to reach the 42 million accident-free man-hour mark last month.

“The Royal Atlantis Resort and Residences is an embodiment of the latest construction designs and technologies,” a company official said. “The project will be completed in September next year, which will put us on a firm footing as a leading global contractor.”