Consider the complexities of constructing an underground facility designed to support dozens of buildings. Situated near a large body of water, adjacent to a critical government center, and facing aggressive completion deadlines, such a project would require the project team to make pivotal decisions quickly to allow excavation and foundations to begin before the balance of the facility was designed. These early strategic choices could fundamentally define the trajectory of the entire construction process.

As with any underground project, early decisions that impact construction need to be made fast and often with incomplete information. Factors to consider include: How deep should the team excavate? How will groundwater be managed? How will structures be supported? Which risks can be deferred versus resolved upfront? These decisions are often made under intense schedule pressure and driven by mission needs, regulations or funding, and these choices often determine whether a project advances swiftly into construction or stalls.

For facility owners facing compressed timelines and challenging subsurface conditions, the critical question is not what is being built underground, but how it is being built. An integrated, staged design approach can accelerate the path from initiation to construction while protecting long-term facility performance.  

On large-scale underground programs, early strategic packaging, disciplined assumptions and close cross-disciplinary coordination can enable excavation and foundation work to begin months earlier than traditional approaches, which dictate all project design is completed before a speck of dirt is moved.

Owners rarely have the luxury of waiting for every design question to be fully resolved. The immediate priority is momentum. The ability to begin excavation and foundation work quickly can be the difference between meeting or missing construction milestones. Achieving momentum requires a shift in planning — away from waiting for fully resolved designs and toward a disciplined, staged approach that allows construction to begin in parallel with ongoing design. 

One of the most effective ways to accelerate underground projects is to deliberately separate work into design and construction packages aligned with how underground facilities are built. Rather than advancing a single monolithic design, the project team develops focused packages that unlock construction activities in sequence.

This staged packaging approach is effective across delivery methods, including construction manager at risk (CMAR), engineer-procure-construct and design-build. In practice, CMAR often offers greater flexibility, allowing incremental pricing while keeping contractors engaged early in an effort to support constructability.

Our Msheireb Downtown Doha project, referenced above for example, shows how sequencing drives underground delivery. For this Middle East project, engineers faced the challenge of building a multilevel underground city below sea level under the pressure of a very accelerated project schedule. Located a block from the Persian Gulf, the program included underground roadways, substations, utility plants and parking beneath 40+ buildings.

A phased package strategy, like the one used for our Doha project, lets the team start construction quickly while managing groundwater, waterproofing and building information modeling considerations. Working with a geotechnical engineering team to create a staged-delivery approach of the following packages can accelerate schedules and move most large-scale projects into construction sooner.

Waterproofing

Treat waterproofing as a critical early package and engage a single owner-contracted specialty vendor as soon as possible. Early involvement with only one vendor helps coordinate membranes, penetration joints and warranty responsibilities across the system, reducing technical gaps from design through installation. Key decisions managed during this phase include blind-side versus positive-side applications, termination details, and product compatibility with concrete, movement joints and below-grade interfaces. Making those calls early helps the team address hydrostatic pressure, sequencing and long-term maintenance risk before these issues become field problems.

Enabling Works: Excavation and Shoring

Perhaps one of the earliest and most important priorities is the work that makes safe excavation possible: earth retention, shoring, dewatering and excavation sequencing. Releasing this package early allows contractors to mobilize and control groundwater while later phases remain in design. Critical decisions made at this time include excavation system support, dewatering approach, allowable movements, access routes and the order of cuts around adjacent structures and utilities. Getting those choices right reduces field surprises and keeps the site ready for foundation work.

Deep Foundations

While site investigations continue, structural teams can establish envelope-level load assumptions for the future facility and use them to advance drilled shafts, piles and other deep foundation elements. Preliminary assumptions establish reasonable foundation demands. The package depends on early decisions about foundation type, target capacities, testing requirements, tolerable settlement and how assumptions will be updated as geotechnical data matures. Releasing the deep foundations work package under clearly defined criteria allows procurement and construction to begin early, while still preserving flexibility to refine details as the superstructure design continues to develop.

Raft (Mat) Foundation

As deep foundations progress, the raft foundation package defines the reinforced concrete mat that ties the structural system together, evenly distributing loads across variable soil conditions. By this stage, column grids and major load paths are defined well enough to design the slab that supports the foundation system. This slab becomes the platform for vertical construction and enables follow-on work without waiting for full architectural or mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) resolution. Decisions that need to be made during this phase include pour sequencing, embed and sleeve locations, waterproofing interfaces, and how MEP systems will be controlled. Resolving these issues early helps avoid redesign where structure, waterproofing and utilities intersect.

Balance of Structure Package

After a waterproofing system is designed and in parallel with the start of construction on enabling works and deep foundations, the design effort can shift to the rest of the facility; columns, walls, suspended slabs and the major architectural and MEP systems. At this point, design and construction fully overlap with real-time coordination occurring between teams. Critical decisions made at this time include which interfaces are fixed, which may remain provisional, and how procurement and release packages will be sequenced. A key objective at this stage is to lock in primary grids, loading assumptions and tolerances early enough to give downstream trades confidence without over-constraining ongoing development. Strong coordination during this stage prevents early underground work from being slowed by later above-grade decisions.

Early geotechnical and structural analysis should focus on the variables that most affect schedule: groundwater behavior, soil and rock capacity, foundation development, excavation stability, and seismic demands. Rather than waiting for exhaustive modeling, teams can use bounding assumptions and clearly defined load paths to move foundation design forward while refining analyses in parallel.

At the same time, foundation design should be informed by contractor input early in the process, as means and methods, such as drilling techniques, slurry systems and casing approaches, can materially influence constructability, risk and performance. Involving contractors as soon as possible in the process brings constructability and sequencing insight into early foundation design decisions, allowing risks to be addressed sooner, assumptions to be tested against real-world constraints and the project to move more decisively toward construction.

Close coordination among the contractor, geotechnical engineer and structural engineer throughout early stages helps align design intent with field execution and reduces rework later. 

One of the clearest differentiators on fast-moving underground projects is having an embedded local technical team during key design and construction phases. Engineers, project managers and program specialists who are near or on the site can respond quickly to RFIs, submittals and unforeseen field conditions before they become issues that impact schedule.

Local teams bring firsthand knowledge of regional labor practices, workforce particularities, permitting pathways, regulatory expectations and site-specific constraints. When paired with home-office support, having an embedded project team blends on-the-ground responsiveness with technical depth, enabling faster, more informed project development. 

Underground facilities demand both precision and momentum, proving that speed and rigor are not mutually exclusive. By adopting integrated, staged decision-making — supported by early partner engagement, embedded program management and disciplined assumptions — owners can begin construction sooner while identifying and managing risks more deliberately. This focus on staged packaging, coordination and constructability from the outset reduces uncertainty and protects long-term investment value without compromising safety or durability.