Jebel Vista.CASE STUDY
1,210 m² over three levels on a 14° slope. Nine-metre post-tensioned cantilevers, 62 piles into rock.
Handed over with a nil defects list in 22 months.
Read the projectJournal
Notes on things we got right, things we got wrong, and details worth writing down before we forget why we did them that way.
Glazing is usually procured after the structure is up, which means the façade absorbs every millimetre of frame tolerance. We buy it eleven months early and pour to it instead. Here is what that costs and what it saves.
The Jebel Vista substructure took four months longer than the programme said it would, and every week of it was in the ground conditions report nobody costed.
We went back to a house we commissioned in 2021 to see which scenes the owners actually use. Two of eleven. This has changed how we hand over.
Replacing half the cement changed the set time, the colour and the site programme. The embodied carbon number moved too. All four are worth knowing before you specify it.
Jebel Vista handed over with nothing on it. That was not luck — it was four mock-ups and an argument in month three.
What we look for first, what we price last, and the three details that tell us whether a project will run.
These entries are written for a demonstration build. The projects, figures and incidents described in them are invented, though the construction practice they discuss is not.
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