New build & refurbishment £14m-£20m
Gold – Mark Pitman ICOB, Willmott Dixon Construction
Project: The Fusion Building, Poole: Four-storey campus hub completed in 81 weeks
Value: £16m
Contract: NEC Option A
On his first job for Willmott Dixon, and the contractor’s second job for the client, Mark Pitman’s sound management brought success at this four-storey campus hub with teaching and social spaces.
Traffic and logistics were key considerations. The site was at the centre of a live campus with 10,000 users, and bordered by two roads, a walkway and an existing building. Pitman broke the access and storage stranglehold on the project by incorporating a construction-phase lay-by into the works, and minimising the impact of deliveries on the client.
By improving the proposed logistics and sequencing, and starting works early, he reduced the construction timetable by eight weeks. This time buffer came to the rescue deep in the construction phase when the steelwork contractor went into administration. With the steel designed, in fabrication and partly erected, Pitman bought what he could from the administrator and then had enough time margin to procure an alternative contractor without trashing the programme.
His use of mock-ups proved its worth. The facade mock-up revealed issues with fixing the secondary cladding to the curtain walling envelope, as well as with the cladding panels’ flexibility. This early identification of problems allowed them to be resolved cheaply upstream rather than expensively downstream. The cladding material was switched to a composite sheet, and folds added to the panels to confer greater rigidity.
Pitman’s value engineering was equally succinct. He amended the internal acoustic products to give greater sound absorption. And he respecified the rain water elements as aluminium rather than cast iron.
He made the valuable suggestion to the client of incorporating its audio-visual and data fit-out within the main contract works rather than after. It eliminated the finish and cost hit of removing large areas of raised access flooring and floor coverings. It also allowed the building to open earlier than originally planned.
Silver – Tim Green, Simons Construction
Project: Private Patients’ Unit, Nuffield Hospital, Cambridge: New clinical facility next to live hospital completed in 73 weeks
Value: £15m
Contract: JCT D&B 2011
Timely delivery of a new clinical facility next to a live hospital on a constrained site is no mean challenge. Doing so while respecting the budget and meeting the client’s expectations raises the difficulty considerably. Tim Green proved up to the task on this complex and heavily serviced building, demonstrating a confident and impressive management expertise.
Proximity to a fully operational hospital tested his diplomacy as well as his planning and organisation. His proactive, forward-thinking and flexible approach kept the construction momentum while minimising the disruption to the hospital.
Green achieved the tight budget and programme with innovative ideas. He moved the wind posts forward to the steel frame erection, so the blockwork could be installed immediately the concrete floors were complete. He arranged for temporary roof coverings to get fit-out started faster and rationalised the number of wall types.
And when things went wrong, he found a solution. For example, the locally sourced cream brick facade sample ticked all the right boxes – until it emerged that the bricks were made in batches that deviated in colour until they were arriving as pink stocks. Green stopped the works, took down the already laid brickwork and visited the brick factory to stress what was needed. Deliveries improved, backed up by his manual quality checks to discard any pink bricks that slipped through.
New build & refurbishment £10m-£14m
Gold – David Norman ACIOB, Wates Construction
Project: Dowty Propellers, Mitcheldean, Gloucestershire: refurbishment of industrial facility, completed in 20 weeks
Value: £11m
Contract: JCT D&B 2011
“Fast track” does scant justice to Dave Norman’s project. After its propeller factory had burned down, his client needed a replacement in six months so it could keep its delivery promises to customers.
The client had lost everything in the fire, including virtually all services information, so the technical brief had to start from scratch. Only as the client purchased each of the 370 pieces of equipment required for the factory fit-out could detail be given about the service supplies needed.
Norman installed a “ring main” for each service around the process areas, sizing and installing the service drops as precise information became available. He addressed the lack of precise knowledge by making sure all the main plant was oversized or could be expanded.
It was all about making a “live” design process work, with construction following sometimes as little as 10 minutes after the design decision had been made. Norman developed phasing and construction plans so the client could install its critical equipment in completed areas with the live services needed. He steered the super-fast-paced project through some 1,500 changes.
The first big critical date was the handover of a reinforced concrete pit for two braider machines. To construct it in time, Norman moved to longer working hours and double shifts, constantly revisiting the detailing and sequencing to reduce programme. His introduction of an incentive plan for the key trades involved was also instrumental in achieving the handover date 10 days early.
Even then, there was never any let-up on this project. The discovery of asbestos debris across the whole roof and services zone in a building let as “asbestos-free” required a four-week clean-up. Norman instigated phased environmental cleaning on night shifts, testing at 7am every morning to allow the day shift construction works to continue.
He delivered every handover on time. Even a catastrophic flood two weeks before practical completion did not knock him off course. He dried out and retested the entire electrical system, ensured the building was safe, and reviewed the programme and critical trades.
Silver – Matt Bidewell, Morgan Sindall
Project: All Saints Green, Norwich: construction of nine-storey student complex, plus refurbishment of Grade II-listed building, completed in 65 weeks
Value: £10.9m
Contract: JCT D&B 2005
when a single-decker bus veered off the road, smashed through the site hoarding and embedded itself in the scaffolding around Matt Bidewell’s nine-storey student accommodation project, work came to an immediate stop.
The resulting four-week delay for an immovable deadline just seven months away could have written completion off as comprehensively as the bus. But by innovatively rescheduling works, implementing a new glazing installation method and accelerating the works with the help of the supply chain, Bidewell absorbed the delay and delivered on time.
It comes as no surprise when you consider his track record by mid-project. He finessed the logistics early on by insisting on a mobile crane rather than a tower. It gave the project a shorter lead-in, derisked the lifting, dispensed with oversail licences, and brought hoist flexibility across the building footprint.
His use of a Van Thiel scaffolding system meant the huge glazing units could be installed from hoists inside the scaffold while the hand-laying of the 200,000 bricks in the facade continued at the same time. From a previous student accommodation job, Bidewell took the idea of offsite-manufactured bathroom pods to save programme time.
He had helped get the project off the ground in the first place after a previous contractor had been unable to find a buildable price. His value engineering saved the £750,000 needed to get going.
The client is now looking to hire contractor Morgan Sindall for another project in the city.
