New build & refurbishment £3m-£5m
Gold – Rakesh Chavda ICIOB, VolkerFitzpatrick
Project: 41 Welbeck Street, Marylebone, London: Construction of offices over six storeys behind retained facade, completed in 82 weeks
Value: £4.6
Contract: JCT D&B 2011
Rakesh Chavda showed exceptional technical planning and attention to detail on this project to build 12,000 sq ft of offices behind a retained Edwardian facade.
He proposed building the central lift and stair core in steel rather than reinforced concrete poured in-situ – his insistence that this would bring completion three months quicker proved to be well founded.
His solution was to pin the retained facade in position while the offices were constructed behind. Although an external steel support frame seemed the obvious choice, it would have required breaking out on to the pavement, utility diversions and substantial new foundations. Chavda came up with the alternative of internal flying shores, which provided lateral restraint for the facade, avoiding the support frame issues and saving £90,000 plus eight weeks on the programme.
Demolishing an infill building and marrying up the new build with irregular adjacent structures presented plenty of challenges. For example, there were four party-wall chimneys, six storeys above the roofline, whose retention was a requirement of planning consent. Chavda proposed installing steel supports and demolishing the chimney breasts below to increase the lettable floor space.
With a tiny footprint in a very restricted central London site that offered absolutely no site storage space, Chavda planned the logistics meticulously. For example, he bulk-bought all the bricks and held them in a yard offsite, then called off small loads whenever they were needed without overloading the site.
He took a proactive approach to neighbour liaison, changing noisy work hours to avoid clashing with business meetings held next door. As a result, despite a level of construction activity that could have been expected to trigger many complaints from the inevitable disruption, not a single one was received.
Silver – Leigh Bennett, Interserve Construction
Project: Longley Centre, Northern General Hospital, Sheffield: Refurbishment & extension of centre, completed in 53 weeks
Value: £5m
Contract: JCT 2005
Not many construction managers would be pleased to see people doing their very best to destroy the fittings, fabric and furniture in the sample room. For Leigh Bennett, though, it was all part of the process. He needed to identify products and structures that would not only suit the client’s budget and the programme, but were also safe and robust enough to withstand the worst that the user group of mental health patients could possibly do to them.
Meanwhile, Bennett had to solve challenges for real on this project to refurbish and extend this health centre. For example, with large parts of the design incomplete, jeopardising the fast-track programme, he kept a detailed request for information tracker. It was the only way to get a clear view of the design status, to record accountability and to help the design team prioritise information delivery to suit the construction need.
And where long waits for design details did occur, Bennett adapted the programme to progress other works. He sustained project momentum by treating the project as a design and build rather than the traditional contract it was.
His other major contribution was value engineering. He alerted the client to a roof product that suited the unusual shape of the new-build extension as well as the budget. The liquid plastic sheet could also be installed quickly without having to remove the roof-mounted plant first.
New build & refurbishment £0-£3m
Gold – Mark Penny ICIOB, ISG
Project: Lulworth & Winfrith Primary School, Wareham, Dorset: New school project on World Heritage Site
Value: £2m
Contract: JCT
Given his first project management role with sole responsibility for a site, Mark Penny showed his capabilities in this new-build school project. Although his participation began only once costs and programme had been agreed, he was heavily involved in costing and assessing the effects of a change in the foundation design before works got under way.
Approachable and proactive, Penny found pragmatic solutions for both strategic and day-to-day problems to keep the project moving forward.
One of his key strengths was stakeholder engagement. The site’s sensitive location on the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site in an attractive village aroused local concerns about the effects of construction activity on the community as well as the appearance of the new building. Penny’s collaborative approach went a long way to ensuring all-round satisfaction with the new school.
By developing a relationship with the landowner, which leased the site to the school, he gained alternative access, which avoided the village’s residential road and allowed site welfare facilities to be set up off the project footprint.
His relationship building came in handy again in finding a nearby location to dispose of the 2,500 cubic metres of soil required by a planning ruling that the roofline had to be lowered by 600mm: the material was trucked just four miles away to raise the landowner’s land above the flood plain.
It was Penny who took the decision to undertake the site contour reprofiling during the holidays. And he delivered numerous newsletters requesting the neighbours’ understanding for specific deliveries such as the site welfare facilities, the steel for the frame and the aluminium roofing. He also held residents’ meetings to alleviate concerns and give the project a human face.
Silver – Peter Griffiths, Coniston
Project: Epping Forest District Museum, Waltham Abbey: Refurbishment of museum completed in 34 weeks
Value: £1.4m
Contract: ICO 2011
Awarded the contract for this museum refurbishment, Peter Griffiths soon realised that the scope exceeded the project finances by £150,000. His value engineering, particularly of the M&E and the finishes, aligned the two.
The lift was a recurring thorn in his side. The excavation works for it revealed an earlier house on the site that needed recording, incurring a week’s delay. It was the first in a host of historical issues, including installing the lift shaft within a half-inch of the Grade II-listed Georgian ceiling beams.
It then transpired that the lift shaft headroom could not accommodate the specified lift. Griffiths’s tenacious and spirited management of a pre-agreed design successfully sourced a compatible, design-acceptable alternative – except that the lift would be supplied eight weeks behind its scheduled date. Griffiths had to completely resequence the main core and ground-floor area to maintain the programme.
Further headaches included a requirement to use lime plaster across the building, and repeated flooding in the new area from the upstairs premises. There was also an unexpected need to install fireproofing across the whole ceiling due to a change of use in the floor above. Positive and proactive in his problem solving, Griffiths showed the determination and commitment needed to ensure the project completed within the time frame as well as budget.
