Bahrain Precast Company, which has just seen the conclusion of yet another successful year in business, is focusing on carrying on the momentum and riding the wave of success into this year.

Last year also saw the company bringing some new blood to manage its affairs, following the death of its general manager Flemming Nielsen and the transfer of production manager Ove Pedersen, who was relocated to Qatar to take charge of enhancing the production facility of BPC’s subsidiary company there.
Goran Hogberg – who has extensive experience in the precast industry, gained during his 21-year tenure as general manager within the industry and many of the years with Swedish Starka Precast Industries – was brought in as the new general manager.
“BPC was quick to change these instances of adversity into opportunity by rejuvenating the company through inducing fresh blood, and has managed to perform very well and achieve its set targets,” says a company spokesman.
“The development of several major projects – the Durrat Al Bahrain, Bahrain Financial Harbour and the 50-storey Bahrain World Trade Centre adjacent to the Sheraton – has created lot of opportunities for the construction industry, including the precast sector,” says Hogberg. “The development of ‘pearl islands’ at Durrat Al Bahrain with their residential villas offers lot of potential for the precast industry. Fast-track schedules have created a good market for precast elements and we anticipate that the industry will prosper during the coming years.”
The year has been particularly good for its hollowcore business with BPC seeing a major increase in sales last year compared to 2003.
“The government's focus on housing projects and the easy availability of housing loans has created a good market for hollowcore slabs last year and, like other manufacturers, BPC also has been benefited from the boom. Demand has been on level with our production capacity and it is time for BPC to once again consider an expansion of capacity,” he adds.
Some of the major works undertaken by the company in Bahrain during 2004 include the Zamil Tower, the IT and Science buildings at the University of Bahrain, and the Hawar Sculpture.

Al Zamil Tower
One of the more challenging projects undertaken by the company in recent times is the erection of 1,389 cladding panels for the al Zamil Tower. The 22-storey landmark tower, which incorporates both traditional and modern features, is clad with 200 mm and 150-mm-thick insulated and solid white sandblasted panels. The tower touches a maximum height of 95.5 m and will serve as a gateway to the suq area in central Manama.
BPC started work in January 2003 and has just completed installation work last month (December).
“Zamil Tower has posed a lot of challenges in the design and erection of panels,” says Hogberg. “The two-tower office building is complex in plan and elevation, which has made it architecturally a demanding project requiring a traditional touch with modern features. Normally buildings taper in width as they reach their full height, but the Zamil Tower flares outwards.
Hogberg explains: “The concave-shaped building flares outwards from the 12th floor onwards, which means that the cladding panels have been attached with specially designed fixing arrangements. Special arrangements are provided for holding the window cleaning equipment near to the window, as the drop line will be about 3.5 m away from the windows at the12th floor.
“Some of the panels on the corners of the top floors are above the shear walls and could not be placed over these walls. So two adjacent panels are cantilevered on beams, which are resting on the solid blocks.
 “As the building flares outwards, a tower crane could not be used for bringing the panels into position from the 16th floor onwards. So a special arrangement was devised to transfer the panels from the tower crane to their final position. For this, BPC had to order a specially-designed crane, which was located inside the building. The panels were lifted from the ground by the tower crane and then placed into position by the special crane. This arrangement allowed panels to be erected on two floors at a time, after which the crane had to be shifted to continue work on other floors.”

University of Bahrain
Work on the IT and science buildings at the University of Bahrain in Sakhir involves the design, production and erection of 1,939 white and coloured insulated cladding panels – which are 100, 250 and 300 mm in thickness – and 230,000 sq m of hollowcore slabs.
Design work on the panels was completed last October while production and erection are due for completion in March.
Most of the hollowcore slabs being erected are between 200 and 240 mm thick and span up to 8.78 m, says Hogberg.
Two corridors of each of the E-shaped buildings are linked via bridges that will rest on the precast panels grouted around dowel rods.
A unique feature of the project is a 14.1-m-high monumental structure. “The cylindrical monumental structure, which will rise to a height of around five storeys, will provide an aesthetically-pleasing aspect to the buildings.  It will be a free-standing structure which will be assembled using various circular precast elements – four tiers high – resting on each other. There are no in-situ beams or columns. Special load-bearing cladding panels have been designed for the project,” he explains.

Hawar sculpture
The sculpture at Hawar Island, which was erected last April, has become a landmark at the resort island.
“Though the job was small it was complex in nature. As there were no construction facilities on the island, BPC had to ferry its crane to the island,” says Hogberg.
The symbolic sculpture comprises two sets of panels, which are white in colour – one rising vertically while the other set gently sloping towards the first, intersecting it and rising triumphantly upwards.
The new sculpture at Hawar Islands is another feather in the cap for BPC, which has been associated with most of the landmark monuments of Bahrain including the Pearl monument (which was built in 1985), the Sail and Fish monuments on Al Fateh highway, Bahrain Map on Shaikh Isa Bin Salman Highway, Isa Town Gate and Riffa Clock Tower.

Sakhir fountain
BPC has also completed work recently on a circular fountain in Sakhir, which comprises 16 panels for the base and 16 panels bearing embossed images of hands around the fountain. The fountain includes a fibreglass sculpture (supplied by others) with an Arabic phase which translates as “life comes from water”.