|
Buildings
Design-Builders Pass Muster in Afghanistan
(designbuild.construction.com - September 2003 issue)
By Elaine
S. Silver
 |
| (Photo
courtesy of Perini) |
Many owners select design-build project
delivery because they have only a tiny window of opportunity
to get their plants on line and their products into the marketplace.
But such aggressive schedules are even more important for
the military and international relations. In Afghanistan,
the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers picked design-build to help
get the Afghan National Army up and running.
The Afghan army is a vital part
of rebuilding the war-torn country and it is graduating 600
troops every 35 days from basic training. They desperately
need living quarters, dining facilities and support systems.
While throwing up some bare bones facilities might be a piece
of cake in a functioning society, it is a logistical nightmare
in a shattered one.
The U.S. Defense Dept.’s foreign
military financing program is funding construction of the
Afghan facilities. Because of incremental funding, “we
could not award a base worth of facilities to one contractor,”
says Robert E. Schaible, project manager for the Corps of
Engineers, which is acting as the owner until the project
is completed and turned over to the Afghan army. “A lot
of the facilities are repetitious in nature and, to the maximum
extent possible, we are sharing designs to speed the process.”
Three firms have separate design-build
contracts to create the equivalent of several small towns
in a country nearly bare of construction equipment. At the
Pol-E-Charki base, a 272-acre site 10 kilometers outside of
Kabul, Perini Corp., Framingham, Mass., is building or renovating
31 barracks, a dining facility, a 10-Mw powerplant and a water/wastewater
treatment plant to support 9,000 troops, at a cost of $28
million. At Darualaman, another base near Kabul, Washington
Group International, Boise, Idaho, has just begun similar
work for $14.4 million. Contrack International, Arlington,
Va., is building barracks in both camps.
All of the projects face formidable
challenges. At Pol-E-Charki, “we first had to clear the
mines,” says Grover T. “Tom” Starbuck, Corps
architect. “We stepped over piles of mortar rounds, grenades,
bullets and anti-tank guns. We were escorted by the military
and we could not walk the entire site so we limited our investigation
to places that were proven to be clear.” The site subsequently
became a garden of red-painted rocks indicating the location
of live munitions. In addition, there were thousands of bombed
out tanks, trucks and military vehicles of every sort and
several thousand army helmets strewn across the site. A subcontractor
was hired to clear the mines and unexploded ordnance. Help
also came from the International Security Assistance Force,
made up of soldiers from Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey
and other countries donating military assets to provide the
initial security in Kabul.
 |
| Starbuck
|
Site prep was just one small challenge.
At the start, there was nothing in the country to move the
flotsam and jetsam of 30 years of war. Starbuck says the Corps
couldn’t find a single backhoe. “There was one tractor
at the Ministry of Defense that they were trying to fix,”
he says.
To create schematics and a scope of
work for the design-builders, Starbuck and the Corps used
aerial photography from the U.S. Air Force. “We gave
[the Air Force] coordinates and we got very detailed photographs,”
he says. The Corps then transferred the information from the
photographs into 3-D CAD format that was accurate to within
5 ft. “No one [in the Afghan army] had a clear idea of
what they wanted or needed, so we did a lot of sketching and...it
helped them see what we were proposing,” says Starbuck.
The Corps set design criteria to what
they call Afghan supportable standards, which included log
rooms and mud bricks. There were no concrete plants in the
country until several Afghan emigrants returned and opened
one. Since Kabul is in an active seismic zone, all structures
had to be rigid enough to withstand earthquakes. “We
looked first at the schedule that we had to meet in order
to bed down these troops, then we looked at the funding that
is being provided by the U.S. government, and then we looked
at the minimum we needed,” says Schaible.
 |
| Schaible
|
The Corps gave the design-builders
schematics of building floor plans, site plans and base layout.
Their assignment was to develop these into designs as well
as create a plan for the infrastructure. The design-builders
have absolute deadlines to house the 600 troops arriving every
35 days. “If the troops do not have a place to go, they
may go home and never return,” says John Gerstenlauer,
Perini’s vice-president of operations.
The design-builders faced many practical
problems, especially communications. There is no land-line
phone service in the country, so the team members have to
rely on cellular and satellite service and even that is an
iffy proposition.“We had two iridium phones, and we were
using e-mails with attachments,” says Starbuck. “Now
we have fax capabilities. We had to build the communication
system from scratch.” Gerstenlauer adds, “Internet
access in the field may be out for days. It can really shut
down your operation.” Especially vulnerable is the link
between engineers and designers in the U.S. approving design
changes and the people rushing to build in the field. Time
lost cannot easily be regained.
Until recently, the only way to bring
money into the country was in cash. “It’s been difficult
to get money in,” says David Jones, WGI director of finance
and project administration. “We would carry in bundles
of $20,000 in cash.” Now, the DA Afghan Bank is accepting
cash transfers so there is no need for lots of briefcases.
Heavy Hauling
Virtually everything else also had to
be brought into the country. “Everything was difficult
to find and needed to be imported,” says Schaible. “We
have air-freighted a lot things—generators, switch gear,
water treatment systems,” says Gerstenlauer. “The
wastewater tanks were shipped, as was a lot of smaller equipment.
But, if it wasn’t going to make it in time, we had to
fly it in.”
When Perini drilled wells and needed
samples tested for purity, it had to put them on ice and fly
them to labs in Dubai. The samples and results arrived back
by plane the next day.
Concrete and reinforcing steel is available
in Pakistan, an important ally. Because Afghanistan is landlocked,
material arriving by ship first comes to Karachi, then Islamabad
and then is trucked to Kabul. But before the material gets
to Kabul, it has to travel through the gauntlet of the Tang-E-Gharu
Pass.
Pol-E-Charki is 6,000 ft above sea
level, and about one kilometer from the German-built Tang-E-Gharu
Pass—three tunnels carved through the Hindu Kush Mountains.
The pass saves days of travel, when it can be used. But one
of the tunnels has rock protruding into the passageway. One
Caterpillar generator being transported was too large to pass
through and struck the rock, causing $60,000 worth of damage
and requiring four additional days of travel to go the longer
route over the mountains.
Switchbacks create another obstacles. Wastewater treatment
equipment and some construction equipment is too large to
safely navigate them and had to be shipped by the longer northern
route. “You are ready with your crane and you make phone
calls and find out that the equipment can’t get through
and it’ll be another four days,” says Gerstenlauer.
The design-builders also have to deal
with substandard materials. Since there is no place or time
to replace substandard material, creative thinking becomes
a commodity. Gerstenlauer says his team had to quickly improve
masonry block received from a local supplier. “We solid-filled
the block and now the total composite meets the strength requirement,”
he says.
The design-builders also changed designs
to suit the quality of the materials. “Some of the buildings
were designed for crude lumber, and in January, we could barely
find a straight piece of lumber,” says Gerstenlauer.
“Now, a better product from Pakistan is available so
the design of the building has to change to accommodate the
higher standard of material.”
Training the work force is another
challenge. Many workers are illiterate and everything has
to be drawn on sketchpads. “Even the subcontractors have
to be taught,” says Gerstenlauer. “They don’t
know about our construction practice.” Perini hired a
group of Afghani engineers to teach workers and ensure quality
control.
 |
 |
| Perini
managers had to deal with vestiges of war. |
Heavy construction equipment was a rare sight. |
|
(Photos courtesy of Perini) |
Building Spirit
Morale among workers is high. “We’ve
been thanked by the laborers who are very appreciative for
the opportunity to work and feed their families,” says
Starbuck. “Every so often, they will bring in a cow and
roast it on a spit and after pay day, they have a feast....Their
culture is a part of what we have to work with.” About
1,500 Afghans are employed at Pol-E-Charki.
WGI’s Jones says his company is
tapping its resources from 40 years ago when one of its heritage
companies, Morrison Knudsen, did extensive work in Afghanistan.
MK built the Kandahar airport, several dams and a big part
of the highway system. Jones says WGI is contacting some Afghanis
who worked with the firm to bring them on board for this project.
Despite the difficulties, the parties are pleased with the
outcome of their collective efforts. Already, 3,500 Afghan
soldiers are billeted at Pol-E-Charki. “Without design-build,
we would not have been able to complete the facilities in
time to support Afghan National Army requirements,” says
Col. Robert R. Derrick, commander of the Corps’ Transatlantic
Programs Center.
|
