scheduling of Watergate work. series of schedule slippages developed when the site was being excavated. The area had been used years before for storing coal gas and its by-pro- ducts, tar and creosote, interfered with normal excavation. Shoring had to be used in areas to keep the thick. black liquid from causing slides. Then workmen ran into oil reservoirs, old pipes, and huge quantities of brick and concrete that had set up for 100 years. All this caused delays.
Watergate's project manager. Giuseppe Cecchi, head of the Wash- ington office of Ediltecno S.P.A., Inc., of Italy, approached Management Technology Inc., about arriving at a tight schedule on the entire project in order to meet deadlines. MTI is a management consultant firm specializ- ing in the construction industry. Be- cause of the lost time, the complexity of the project itself, and the problems in interfacing Watergate with its sur- roundings, such as nearby construction on an interstate highway. MTI used a computer in San Diego, California, to lay out a network planning system. This system is used daily to record all changes and delays and determine their impact on the overall project.
Computer Scheduling
The network planning system is also used to schedule work of the dif- ferent construction trades in individu- al apartments. On a single day, three trades might be working in one apart- ment and they must be tightly
scheduled.
Basic to most of the problems associated with Watergate is its nature. It is a luxury apartment project. Within the confines of the architect's aesthetic design, the owners gave buy- ers latitude in choosing floor plans and decoration to allow more freedom than most apartment projects. There are 167 floor plans in Watergate East's 240 apartments, and a variety of types of marble for counter tops
Far East Architect & Builder June, 1966
Model of Watergate complex at Washington, D.C.
in bathrooms and floors in entrance halls and foyers.
In addition, below ground level will be two levels of promenade area leading to complete shopping facili- ties, including a two-storey drug store, a two-storey supermarket, and a restaurant. There will also be park- ing space for about 1,000 cars. None of this will be visible from above, but other residents in this redeveloped section of Washington will have ac- cess to the shops by escalators. The area above these facilities not taken up by the buildings themselves, seven acres of the 10-acre site, will be de- voted to fountains, walks, parks, and swimming pools,
Computer Pricing
To price these apartments fairly. Riverview Realty Corporation, sales
agency for Watergate, also made use of a computer. With so many dif- ferent floor plans and such a wide choice in size and location, a fair price relationship between apartments had to be arrived at. So a programme was written for an IBM 1401 that considers nine major factors in arriv- ing at an apartment's price.
Construction began in February, 1965, on the hotel and office build- ings, which were designed as a single stage of the project. The office build- ing is the only part of Watergate with straight lines. The hotel's lines curve in toward the centre of the building, and Watergate West, now in preliminary outline form. is very nearly a mirror image of the hotel.
Watergate South, a large, circular apartment building, has yet to be translated by computer from the architect's drawings.
Complex in its early construction stage
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