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CONSTRUCTION WORLD
FEBRUARY
2016
PROJECT PROFILE
the demand for the safety officers, safety
representatives, scaffold supervisors, erectors
and inspectors. The labour force employed
on site peaked in March 2015 with over 1 800
people on site.
Risks
The Horizon development includes the
upgrading of the roadway which currently will
be inadequate to handle the expected drastic
increase in traffic in the vicinity around devel-
opment. The increase in road width will result
in the loss of pavement width which in turn
will result in many trees being lost. Some are
being replanted inside the new landscaped
areas, but unfortunately not all.
Social impact consideration
A contract of this nature requires a vast
amount of skilled labour resources which are
in particular short supply in Mozambique.
To deal with the high demand of steel fixers,
bricklayers and plasterers, SS Construções
employed and trained hundreds of new
employees in these trades.
These people had to be trained to meet
the demands of this contract and its tight
schedule. The existing training facilities
in the contractor’s plant yard had to be
increased significantly to cope with the
numbers required to be put through the SS
Construções in-house training programmes.
On successful completion of their
training, they were deployed to site for further
on-the-job training and integration with
existing teams.
During 2015, SS Construçoes embarked
on social upliftment projects for the commu-
nity in the Zimpeto neighbourhood. It rebuilt
a dilapidated building and turned it into a
pre-primary school which houses 65 very
appreciative children.
The second project entails the construc-
tion of a sports field with change rooms,
public ablutions and a spectator stand. It
will also boast with one of the very few fully
grassed soccer pitches in Maputo.
Surrounding this field, the contractor will
transplant the trees that had been displaced
by the Horizon development.
Block manufacturing plant
The project specification for the masonry
walls is based on the use of concrete blocks.
The local block manufacturing enterprises are
not as formal as those in RSA. Open air manu-
facture, no quality assurance processes and
limited curing all lead to poor quality blocks
being the norm.
This coupled with the very high demand
for blocks throughout the wet works phase of
the project, necessitated SS Construçoes to
set up its own block manufacturing plant.
This plant, with 12 full time employees,
trained to operate it, has successfully serviced
the high demand Horizon project and has
since supplied a number of the contractor’s
other contracts with quality blocks and will
continue doing so into the future.
The towers in detail
The apartment tower consists of 17 floors
with 11 apartments per floor. These are made
up of a three thee bedroom units, three two
bedroom units, three one bedroom units
and four studio apartments. The 20
th
and 21
st
floor levels are dedicated to six double-storey
penthouse apartments.
The office tower floors are open plan
with ablutions, kitchenette and service rooms
on each floor. The SS Construçoes in-house
carpentry department manufactured and
installed all the doors, door frames and some
joinery elements in this tower.
The central AC plant which will keep
every square metre of the building cool in
the hot tropical local weather conditions is
located in the middle of the podium.
Three MV standby diesel generators
provide standby power to protect the building
from the periodical power outages.
The building also boasts a 100% coverage
sprinkler system not common in Mozam-
bique. Due to the size, complexity and tight
programme, dual specialist subcontractors
had to be contracted for the same trades.
Plumbing, tiling and painting packages
were all too large for one contractor to deal
with which necessitated this approach.
Mozambique does not have formal sewer
treatment works systems and hence the
Horizon has a large on-site sewer treatment
plant which treats the effluent. Once treated,
the clean water is stored for use as top-up in
the HVAC system’s cooling towers and for the
irrigation of the landscaped areas.
Intricate façades
The façades on the project consists of a
double glazed stick system and a flush glazed
unitised system which are very complex due
to the curved shapes and varying applications
required to different parts of the building.
The design of the interfaces with
the concrete structure took months to
conclude. Everything was then pre-made
in Portugal and shipped to Mozambique
for installation. Thereafter the concrete
balustrades were decorated with a Gamma
Zenith render application which finishes the
impressive looking façades.
The public areas on the podium level
consist of a cocktail bar, outside entertain-
ment areas and two swimming pools, beauti-
fully finished off with tropical palm trees and
lush landscaping.