Altair project, work goes on apace

Six floors completed in a month:

Altair's twin towers promoter Indocean Developers reports that the building gained six floors in August - a benchmark given the intricacies of its structural design - and reached its 32nd level by the third week of September.

Twenty-four hour live streaming has been installed at the construction site, enabling anyone to monitor its progress. Designed by architect Moshe Safdie, Altair will, on completion next year, comprise a 63-storey 'leaning' tower and a taller 68-storey vertical tower. It will have 400 luxury apartments.

"We are making excellent progress and are on schedule," said J. Domingo, Project Manager from SWA, Altair's Project Management Consultant. "Casting six floors in a month while ensuring international specifications pertaining to quality and safety are maintained, is a new benchmark in the Sri Lankan construction industry."

Altair's local Structural Engineer Deepal Wickramasinghe commended the project's contractor Shapoorji Pallonji Lanka Limited for building six floors in a month despite inherent structural complexities.

"Completing six floors a month in a masterpiece of its kind, while overcoming the logistics challenges and managing the cultural change involving various stakeholders is indeed a hard task," Project Director from Shapoorji Pallonji Lanka Limited, Baiju Ramakrishnan said, adding, "Our commitment, dedication, hard work and international expertise in high rise construction are the factors that have made this possible." The development's 1.5 million square feet of high-end eco-friendly living space will be supported by 40,000 square feet of supportive up-market retail space.