The Arlington Construction Project Timeline Report
The baseline programme for The Arlington, prepared by Project Manager Samantha Greenfield and issued days before the leadership team crossed into Bixbus. It set out how two twenty-storey towers and 580 apartments would be built round the clock in 55 weeks, from groundbreaking on 1 October 2018 to completion on 16 October 2019, with the milestones the team was held to, and a close-out note recording how far ahead of them the job finished.
Project: The Arlington
Location: District 8, Bixbus, Clivilius
Client: Guardians of Bixbus
Delivered with: Killerton Enterprises (materials, plant and personnel)
Prepared by: Samantha Greenfield, Project Manager
Approved by: Archibald Beulen, Project Director & Site Manager
Programme by: Aldo Heikki
Issued: 24 September 2018 (baseline, Revision 3)
Project description
The Arlington is two residential towers of twenty storeys each, standing either side of a landscaped courtyard. Together they will hold 580 apartments, from studios to three-bedroom family homes. They are Bixbus's first permanent high-rise housing, and the first test of whether the settlement can build at height, quickly and safely, ahead of the much larger residential buildings it will need in the years to come.
Scope
- Two steel-framed towers on concrete foundation mats, with concrete cores, composite floors and glass curtain wall
- 580 apartments, 290 per tower, each with its own kitchen, bathroom and laundry space. Per tower: 19 studios, 79 one-bedroom, 116 two-bedroom and 76 three-bedroom apartments, including five accessible apartments on the ground floor
- Four passenger lifts and one service lift per tower
- Rooftop gardens, a shared pavilion and a small plunge pool on each roof
- A landscaped courtyard between the towers with the main pool, shaded seating and a walking path
- A gate at the south end of the site giving access to the river
How the job will run
- Three eight-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from the first week
- Materials, plant and prefabricated assemblies delivered through five portals, booked by the hour and lifted straight from the receiving area
- Tower B to follow Tower A by about three weeks at every stage, so crews can move from one tower to the other
- Trades to overlap floor by floor: cores ahead of the steel, slabs two to three levels below the steel, curtain wall below the slabs, services and finishes working upwards behind the curtain wall
- Planned workforce: about 150 at peak, in March and April 2019
Baseline milestones
| Milestone | Baseline date |
| Groundbreaking and site mobilisation | 1 October 2018 |
| Site fenced, lit and on three shifts | 7 October 2018 |
| Tower A foundation mat poured | 22 October 2018 |
| Tower B foundation mat poured | 30 October 2018 |
| Steel erection begins, Tower A | 5 November 2018 |
| Steel erection begins, Tower B | 26 November 2018 |
| Services trades mobilised | 14 December 2018 |
| Curtain wall begins, Tower A | 14 January 2019 |
| Curtain wall begins, Tower B | 11 February 2019 |
| Tower A topped out | 26 March 2019 |
| Tower B topped out | 16 April 2019 |
| Tower A enclosed | 3 May 2019 |
| Tower B enclosed | 31 May 2019 |
| Tower A substantial completion | 10 July 2019 |
| Tower B substantial completion | 3 September 2019 |
| Landscaping and courtyard complete | 27 September 2019 |
| Project completion and handover | 16 October 2019 |
Phases
- Site establishment (Weeks 1–2): fencing, lighting, offices, laydown areas, portal receiving, power and water from Bixbus
- Earthworks and foundations (Weeks 2–6): excavation to 3.5 metres, waterproofing, both foundation mats
- Structure (Weeks 5–29): cores, ten two-storey steel tiers per tower, floor slabs and roof slabs
- Envelope (Weeks 16–35): curtain wall, balconies and roofing
- Services (Weeks 11–45): electrical, mechanical, plumbing, fire protection and lifts
- Fit-out (Weeks 20–48): partitions, carpentry, tiling, painting, flooring, kitchens and bathrooms
- External works (Weeks 35–52): courtyard, pools, walking path, river gate and rooftop gardens
- Commissioning and handover (Weeks 40–55): testing, inspections, certificates of occupancy and handover to the Bixbus Housing Authority
Risks
- Heat: shifts and rest breaks to be arranged around the hottest part of the day
- Portal capacity: any delay to a delivery booking holds up the crane and the crews behind it
- Workforce: crews arriving from Earth in waves, many speaking little English and unprepared for Clivilius
- Float: one to two weeks at most on any activity on the critical path
Samantha Greenfield
24 September 2018
Close-out note, 21 August 2019
The Arlington was completed and accepted on 21 August 2019, eight weeks ahead of this baseline. Tower A topped out three weeks early, on 5 March, and Tower B on 27 March. Tower A reached substantial completion on 19 June and Tower B on 16 July, seven weeks early. The workforce peaked at 145 on 18–21 March 2019. The full record of the build is kept in the Master Construction Timeline and the Master Roster.
S. Greenfield
