Foundation works in Jakarta

Jakarta is the largest city in Southeast Asia with around ten million inhabitants. The impressive skyline of the Indonesian capital will soon have one more distinctive building – the Japanese company Mori Building

Jakarta is the largest city in Southeast Asia with around ten million inhabitants. The impressive skyline of the Indonesian capital will soon have one more distinctive building – the Japanese company Mori Building is currently constructing a new 59-story high-rise, including four basement floors, in the "Golden Triangle", right in the center of Jakarta. In addition to offices, the 226-meter building will also feature restaurants and cafés. The main contractors of the Jakarta office tower project are Shimizu Corporation from Japan and Bangun Cipta Kontraktor from Indonesia.

Completion of the high-rise is scheduled for 2021, while the foundation work has been underway since May 2017, with which the local subsidiary of Bauer Spezialtiefbau GmbH, P.T. Bauer Pratama Indonesia, has been contracted.

In addition to the production of several test piles, Bauer's scope of works also includes drilling 462 foundation piles, each of them 69 meter-deep and with a diameter of 1.2 meters. Two Bauer rotary drilling rigs, a BG 28 and a BG 30, are used for this. Bauer Indonesia is also producing a 44 meter-deep diaphragm wall with a GB 34 grab, which will serve as a retaining wall. The four basement floors of the future high-rise will be built using the top-down construction method.

One of the challenges, reports project manager Anang Hidayat, is the relatively small area on which the foundation works takes place. Aside from that, the construction site is located in the center of the megacity, which then requires specific requirements for logistics as the time frames in which the delivery of concrete or removal of the excavated soil are severely limited.

Despite this, the foundation work, which is being carried out in double shifts, is coming along very well, meaning that the drilling and diaphragm wall work will likely be completed by January 2018 as per the contract schedule.