Reinforced Soil Retaining Walls in the Mina Al Fajer Resort Project, Fujairah, UAE

Dhs 800 m (USD 218 m) Mina Al Fajer Resort project commenced in June 2007. The project - covering an area of 777,025 square feet - includes a marina, mountain villas, solarium villas, marina apartments and a five-star hotel. The layout of the mountain villas was designed to form a number of rows of villas at different levels forming terraces up the hillside on the sea-front. The mountain villas and the road connecting the terraces at different levels required construction of retaining walls up to 18-m heights and having an overall face area of 20,000 m². Based on successful completion of a number of projects in the same region, TensarTechTW1 (ME) Wall System was chosen by the client. Some of the challenges facing the designer were: (1) the design of the reinforced soil structures to support structures with low tolerance to movement, such as concrete housing frames and swimming pools; (2) limited available space for geogrid placement; (3) tight construction schedule; and (4) architectural project requirements comprising frequent and acute corners on the wall layout. The chosen TensarTech TW1 (ME) Wall System proved to be a very successful solution that is inherently flexible enough to deal with the project requirements and resulting in cost-effective and maintenance-free structures designed to last for 120 years.