Friday, April 23, 2010

Aviation House nears completion

HOUSING development scheme programs has boosted the real estate industry within the city of Dar es Salaam and its environs. The move is in line with the national economic growth programs that aims at achieving a sustainable liberalized economy. An example of the emerging housing development project is the newly constructed ‘Aviation House’, a property of a state owned organization, Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) which is in final stage of construction.

A newly constructed a State-of-the-art building to be the headquarter house of the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) at Minazi Mirefu on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam city.

THE new building for Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) which is under construction in Dar es Salaam is in its final stages. The project known as ‘Aviation House’ and the State-of-the-art building will be the headquarter of the TCAA. The building is an office block occupying an area of about 7,000 square meters comprising of the main building, restaurant, guard house and a generator house. It has been built strategically at the centre of an open space owned by TCAA. On its completion, the building will hopefully raise the quality and the value of the surrounding The building has a unique design and glass materials have been partly used to specifically enhance the aesthetic beauty on its façade which looks like a curved structure. It’s envisaged that the project will completely alter the skyline breaking the monopoly of scattered houses and its environs. The four storey building was designed to accommodate offices for TCAA activities only, and this is in a bid to ease the current congestion of TCAA’s staff who are located at IPS and Tetex buildings respectively in the city centre. TCAA is a state owned organization that looks after air navigation and safety regulations. Technicians at the construction site are putting the final touches onto the State-of-the-art building which is located about 100 meters away from the main road to Gongo La Mboto suburb at Ukonga-Minazi Mirefu on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam city. The project is being built by a Dar es Salaam based Chinese construction company, Beijing Construction Engineering Group with a building permit No.TBA/BP/143. The company works in collaboration with other sub-contractors it has assigned for various jobs to make sure that the construction is completed at a set time. The construction started in late 2007 and was initially expected to end by June 2009. But due to unavoidable circumstances, the completion time has been revised and all the specific firms are trying to keep the construction at much faster pace in order to finish by end of May this year. According to project owners, the cost of the construction of a modern complex is approximated to be Tshs. 10.5 billion out of which Tshs. Tsh. 5 billion has been financed by the TCAA whereas about Tshs. 6.5 has been taken as a loan from Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA). Aviation house is a landmark project whose construction is well designed with a complemented additional ample parking space in it. The area is enough to accommodate over 100 vehicles at a time.

The back side view of the TCAA’s house

The building is a prime development complex comprising mainly of executive high quality office rooms which have been designed to make the staff work comfortably. According to one engineer, they are big enough, well furnished interior design with locally and imported materials. These are well designed and are completely furnished with the State-of-the-art amenities. The project is being constructed by using both locally available materials as well as the imported ones. The local materials includes, cement, sand, aggregates, doors and paints., whereas the imported materials are reinforcement bars, tiles, ceiling materials, iron mongery and air-conditioners. At the ground floor of the building is located a conference room with a capacity of about 100 people, and a library has been located on the ground floor. The conference room is made up of caustic ceiling treatment materials that filters out noise and is supplied with the Daikin air-conditioning machine and will be equipped with the State-of-the-art projectors. Internally the building has a unique architectural design plan whereby there is void at the centre of the building which goes up to the roof and decoration of types of ceiling fitted in the building. This is an open space known as the central void. Two lifts have been strategically installed by East Africa elevator Co. Ltd, the leading company specializing in lift installation in East Africa region.

Electricity supply:
In order to meet the everyday electricity demand for the entire building, Derm Electrics (T) Limited has featured top range wiring and its fittings that ensures the security and enhance convenience. The firm has done the wiring in all the floors from top to ground floor of the building. The company used the most sophisticated quality electrical products mostly of the UK based products.

Floor design of the building:
Floor design and the detailing of the building was computer generated, spiral staircases directly connect to the upper floors running from top floor to the ground floor. Stainless like balustrade structure have been fixed alongside to help climbers to retain their balance while climbing or coming down the stairs. The quality of a whole building is very rich as most steps and floors are decorated with granite polished tiles. The toilets are well furnished with the beautiful lavatory materials and modern sanitary wares and other rooms have been decorated with floor porcelain tiles of different types covering the toilets and staircase. Therani Associates and MD Consultancy firm, the locally registered architect firms did the design and planning of the interior as well as the exterior part of the whole building., The interior finishing is comprised mainly of plaster and paints on the wall surfaces which has been supplied by Sadolin paint company. The two architectural firms does supervision work by monitoring and checking the quality control at the project site. They work in collaboration with the main contractor so as to ensure together with other things the work’s ethics and specifications drawn are strictly adhered and followed as per the rule.

Water supply and facilities:
Another considerable design feature of a building is that, the designers have provided underground concrete water storage tank reservoir with the capacity of over 15,000 litres of water. A borehole has been drilled nearby from which water will be pumped and stored in underground tank From the underground tank, water will be pumped up to two large storage overhead plastic tanks each with the capacity of 7,000 litres of water to be installed on top of the building. By the use of pressure and gravity, water will be made to flow to various end points throughout the entire building. As per the design, water would be flowing to toilets, urinals, washing basin and kitchen sinks. From washing basin, water would be taken to septic tanks which would be emptied on regular basis. Storm water will be flown from the roof to the basement through down pipes and will be pumped out through the external systems. Other water tank on top would be for other services such as fire hose reel system

Staff canteen under construction.


Other facilities:
Apart from water tanks, the building has also been designed to have highly sophisticated security facilities such as fire fighting facilities. These will be installed by the main contractor when the project is complete and starts operations. Extreme precautions will be made to contain fire disasters with appropriate modern technologies such as fire detection and addressable fire alarms systems. Fire hose reel systems, dry riser and portable fire extinguishers will be made available all along escape spiral staircase which serves as evacuation route when fire erupts. The building has been considered to have monitoring facilities for security systems such as Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) surveillance cameras and other installations such as data communication equipments e.g internet and telephones will be made available wherever appropriate. In terms of structural design, the building has been designed to allow the development of structure cabling for communication purposes. The internet structural design has been provided with the required specifications on all inner beams to cater for trucking for structured cabling, air-conditioning and future desire for centralized air conditioning systems. There will be also two highly powered standby generators of about KVA 400 in a special room which will be used during electricity power cut. Extreme precautions has been taken to contain possible fire disasters with appropriate modern technologies such as the detection and addressable fire alarm systems. Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority is a state owned organization whose mission is to ensure safety security and regularity of civil aviation in the. The firm provides effective oversight and efficient air navigation services while protecting the environment and safeguarding the interest of consumers and the general public.

No comments: