CMYA 2015
Category sponsored by
New build and refurbishment over £60m GOLD
GOLD James Carpenter ICIOB Project manager Kier Construction PROJECT: Five Pancras Square, London N1: construction of 10-storey mixed-use community hub, completed in 140 weeks VALUE: £66m CONTRACT: JCT 2011 with contractor’s design JAMES CARPENTER showed skill in leading the team through real difficulties to deliver a community hub with dramatic multilevel entrances, upward displacement ventilation, a 10-storey atrium, two basement swimming pools, a gymnasium and a cantilevered central stairway. Through a cheerful management style he created a working environment where staff from different companies felt valued and meshed into a single delivery team. This played no small part in the project’s recovery from the insolvencies of two key subcontractors, putting 22 weeks of programme at risk. Carpenter’s innovative solutions pulled back 12 of those weeks. And when the first failed subcontractor’s suppliers began to struggle, he stepped in, saving the suppliers and ultimately
SILVER Alasdair Fernie FCIOB Project manager Brookfield Multiplex Construction Europe PROJECT: South Glasgow University
Hospital and Royal Hospital for Sick Children: construction of two hospitals with 170,000 sq m of floorspace, completed in 200 weeks VALUE: £600m CONTRACT: NEC 3 option C RIGHT AT THE TOP of the construction tree
come the £100m+ projects, where the construction manager needs a wealth of technical insight, industry experience and commercial acumen as well as soft skills galore to operate strategically and influence the key project drivers. So for a £600m monster project to build two adjacent hospitals – probably the biggest
the project. When the cladder too became insolvent he entered direct contracts with its suppliers, so orders would be fulfilled. His management of risk was excellent. He introduced precast columns to reduce working at height and crane requirements, and opted for 24-hour continuous slipform construction to gain programme certainty. He brought in first-of-a-kind anti-dust/ noise screens, and challenged his team construction site in the UK for each of the past four years – the client would obviously want someone a bit special. Step forward Alasdair Fernie. His calm, confident and mature performance in the tender bidding (while employed by another company) so impressed the client that it advised Brookfield Multiplex to get him on board to lead the scheme. On a four-year programme with around three million construction activities undertaken, the calls he had to make were huge – and paid off handsomely. He changed the planned jumpform construction of the central cores to slipform, gaining 12 weeks on the programme as well as commercial viability and safer construction. His early installation of lift and stair cores freed up the works onsite by allowing safe access to the workfaces. He captured programme advantage through modularisation and offsite fabrication. And he leveraged the approach by instructing a flat slab soffit to be
to design prefabricated service elements that saved 121,000 man-hours onsite. Carpenter’s value-engineering was invaluable. He redesigned the four-storey steel frame to drastically reduce temporary works. He switched to a category B fit-out that saved the client £100 per square metre. And he installed offsite manufactured joinery to enhance the look for half the cost.
SILVER
Other Finalists David Firth MCIOB Sir Robert McAlpine, The Birley Building, Manchester
Darren Stoker
Bowmer & Kirkland, Aberdeen Business Park
Deon Scholtz
VolkerFitzpatrick, Sainbury’s Daventry Depot
George Amy
Brookfield Multiplex, Aldgate Tower, London
designed across the project’s footprint. Fernie’s rapport with client, consultants and subcontractors was excellent. He pitched the relationship on honest and open communication, and went the extra mile. The result was a strong bond of trust and confidence in his ability to deliver a vast and highly complex project. As he did, five weeks early and under budget.
36 | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER
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