Construction Manager February 2017

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Agenda

Feb 17

News and views 04

Lawyers warn of growing H&S fines

Fines approach £13m after tougher sentencing introduced last year.

06 Toolkit to tackle modern slavery

CIOB hopes contractors and supply chain will adopt principles.

08 Art of Building reaches climax

Winner of annual photography competition unveiled this month.

10 Feedback

Letters, comments and readers’ views on the CITB and training.

12 Getting ‘match fit’ for Brexit

We need stronger leadership if we are to help in making our EU exit a success, says Mark Beard.

14 Bonfield falls a few steps short

Steve Hodgson says report is welcome, but its recommendations don’t go far enough.

Features 18

26

30

34

44

56

Development: Views from the top What’s the outlook like for commercial development postBrexit? CM checks out the figures and interviews leading clients.

Crossrail: station to station Our 11-page special on the new Elizabeth line kicks off with a look at the 10 new stations in London.

Crossrail: on site at Tottenham Court Road CM visits perhaps the most ambitious station on the line, which has the longest escalator, a curved platform and two ticket halls.

Crossrail: a journey into the future A look at some of the innovation and technological advancements that will also be Crossrail’s legacy.

CPD: Aircrete blocks Reacquaint yourself with an industry standard, the benefits of which you might have overlooked.

Project of the month Student accommodation, UEA.

30 Construction professional 38

39

40

42

‘Taking BIM plunge has paid off’

Architect Anthony Harte relates his practice’s BIM journey and says it has driven efficiency and raised profits.

Say what you mean...

Stuart Thwaites on a case that highlights the importance of making yourself clear.

Reintegrating structures and processes Colin Harding outlines a new way of working that brings design and construction teams closer together.

Out of site should not mean out of mind Assad Maqbool analyses the risks of offsite manufacture.

56

+ Contact

48-55 All the latest news and reports from CIOB members and branches

Take the test on this issue’s CPD subject of aircrete bricks and additional topics at

www.constructionmanagermagazine.com/cpd

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News

H&S fines approach £13m in one year as lawyers warn they could skyrocket Tougher sentencing guidelines start to bite as prosecutions hit companies across the board.

Lawyers have warned the industry needs to become more aware of the new HSE sentencing guidelines, as fines for construction companies have hit more than £12.6m since last February.

New penalties came into force in February 2016 in which fines are proportional to turnover and a number of big names have fallen foul of the new rules as well as a general increase in fines and custodial sentences over the last year.

Insurance and risk law firm BLM has been tracking construction fines weekly since the new rules came into play and found the three highest fines alone totalled £6.5m, all of which involved fatalities of either staff or customers.

Directors of two construction companies were also given custodial sentences. One was given six years after being found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter, the other was sentenced to six months after one of his employees was killed on site.

The message on safety remains unchanged — it is the penalty for getting it wrong that has become the real sting in the tail.”

Helen Devery, BLM

Balfour Beatty, Travis Perkins and Kier are among those that have been fined.

Balfour Beatty took the biggest hit, fined a total of £3.6m since February 2016 for two incidents in which workers were killed, while Travis Perkins was fined £2m for an incident where a customer died after being crushed by a company vehicle.

Kier MG (formerly known as May Gurney) was fined more than £2m at Lincoln Crown Court after a worker’s leg was broken in six places when a trench collapsed on him.

Helen Devery, partner and head of health and safety at BLM, said: “Between February and December 2016, construction companies incurred fines totalling more than £12.6m. What is worrying is that awareness of these guidelines is piecemeal across the industry with some smaller businesses failing to understand their importance and the potential impact on their business.

“All construction companies, big or small, must recognise that the causes of deaths

and injuries have remained generally the same so health and safety has to continue to be a key priority for senior management and across the wider business. Risks should be assessed carefully on each project and effective training undertaken. Failure to undertake these two processes are frequent causes of injury and death. So the message on safety remains unchanged — it is the penalty for getting it wrong that has become the real sting in the tail,” added Devery.

Her views were echoed by Kevin Bridges, partner in health and safety at law firm Pinsent Masons, who also said from his monitoring of the situation over the last year he believes there is still not enough awareness of the situation.

“For small or medium-sized companies, they might not have the health and safety power of some of the big contractors, and I’m seeing, in general, a lot of awareness is not out there.

He added: “I also think the value of fines is only the tip of the iceberg and we can expect them to rise even more, look at Alton Towers operator Merlin being fined £5m earlier this year. That was a horrific accident but nobody actually died, I think the construction industry is in danger of much larger penalties if someone is killed.

“It is only a matter of time before judges become more confident with the new rules and impose further significant fines on larger construction businesses.”

Others have weighed in on the issue, with the British Safety Council also pointing out over the summer that the potential for fines to rise even higher is quite clear.

It was pointed out by the safety advisory body that large contractors, as defined by the Sentencing Council, are firms with a turnover above £50m and can be fined up to £20m under the new guidelines.

However, this is not a cap and the wording on the official document says: “Where an offending organisation’s turnover or equivalent very greatly exceeds the threshold for large organisations, it may be necessary to move outside the suggested range to achieve a proportionate sentence,” opening the door for fines to skyrocket even more.

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News

Fees for Intervention challenge Construction lawyers are awaiting with interest the outcome of a legal challenge to HSE’s Fees for Intervention due to take place in the summer.

The cost recovery scheme, introduced in 2012, charges any company that breaks health and safety laws the costs for inspection at £129 per hour.

But the legality of the scheme and its appeals process is set to be questioned with a judicial review being brought by facilities management firm OCS in an attempt to have its Fees for Intervention bill overturned and the HSE’s current system for deciding appeals quashed.

The company, alleges that the HSE acts as “prosecutor, judge and jury” during its procedure for challenging a notification of contravention — the formal notice that triggers an FFI bill.

Keith Morton QC, instructed

by Mike Appleby of Fisher Scoggins Waters, is acting for OCS Group, with the firm arguing whether the retrospective process for establishing the legitimacy of an FFI notice complies with natural justice, the principle that a person cannot be a “judge in their own cause” and that a defence must always be fairly heard.

Kevin Bridges, partner at Pinsent Masons, said: “A lot of people in the industry are keenly watching this court case, there’s no suggestion the scheme will be scrapped but the result could have a big impact for companies and construction.”

This news follows on from data released earlier this month by law firm Pinsent Masons that found in the last year the HSE charged businesses £15m under the scheme, an increase of 23% from £12m the year before.

Even with the £15m recovered, according to HSE accounts and data complied by Pinsent Masons, the costs of administering the scheme have also been high. The scheme fell short by £2.7m in 2015/16, which represents an increase of 53% on the shortfall of £1.8m for 2014/15.

Bridges added: “There are concerns that Fees For Intervention is encouraging the HSE to intervene with more businesses to generate more revenue to close that gap, although there appears to be no evidence that the gap is in fact closing.

“There is also limited scope to challenge the costs the HSE imposes and as appeals are heard by the HSE itself, many businesses decide to just pay up.

This leaves them potentially vulnerable in the event of future legal disputes as it could be cited as acceptance of poor health and safety performance.”

An HSE spokeswoman said: “In 2015/16 HSE raised invoices amounting to £14.7m of the £17.4m regulatory work which was previously funded by the taxpayer. This cost represents all aspects of the HSE’s work not just the administration costs of running the scheme.”

How Fees for Intervention have risen 2013-16 £15,027,815.54

£14,000,000 £12,000,000 £10,000,000

£12,218,317.73 £10,084,257.62

£8,000,000 £6,000,000 £4,000,000 £2,000,000 £0 2013/14

2014/15

2015/16

Contractors and clients to share new technologies Major contractors are to come together with infrastructure clients and supply chain organisations to share and develop innovation.

A number of leading contractors have signed up to the new venture known as The Infrastructure Industry Innovation Platform, or i3P, including Balfour Beatty, Laing O'Rourke, Costain, BAM, Kier and Skanska.

The new venture, launched before Christmas, is a continuation of the Innovate18 programme run by Crossrail over the last few years under which the industry has worked together to develop new technology for the £14.8bn infrastructure project.

It already has the backing of industry representative bodies, including the Construction Leadership Council and the Civil Engineering Contractors Association.

The new i3P platform is an online portal in which every partner involved can login to and share information, news, develop ideas as well as promote events.

Each member pays a subscription fee and it is from this money that an innovation fund has been set up to develop ideas and technology. At Crossrail member firms each paid £25,000 a year. The forum decides on what ideas to take forward to funding and development. At Crossrail it has nurtured a range of ideas such as the development of

augmented technology and smart helmets as well as adapting GoPro cameras for use in health and safety.

William Reddaway, innovation programme manager at Crossrail has been working with Innovate18 and is now involved with i3P. Reddaway said: “Infrastructure and construction are not seen as innovative compared to aerospace and the automotive industries. Crossrail is coming to an end but the benefits of the programme and its legacy is something we wanted to continue.

Particularly with such big projects coming up in the next few years like the new runway at Heathrow and Hinkley Point.”

Reddaway added that the new platform also has the backing of a number of other organisations and projects, such as Thames Tideway, Highways England, Network Rail and the Environment Agency.

“The new platform is still at a very fledgling stage, but we can see the real benefit such programmes and cross industry collaboration can produce,” he said.

“Obviously there are benefits to both cost and time on projects that we have seen from Innovate18, but it can help so much more such as in health and safety and other areas where the positive impact down the line is immeasurable.”

For more detail on Innovate18 and Crossrail, see page 34.

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CIOB News

Toolkit launched to tackle modern slavery Institute hopes major contractors and supply chain will adopt principles to stamp out forced labour The CIOB’s chief executive, Chris Blythe, has called on the industry to get behind the launch of a new toolkit that aims to stamp out modern slavery in construction.

Blythe said he hoped that a number of Tier 1 contractors, as well as various other parts of the construction supply chain, will sign up to the CIOB-developed toolkit, and agree to adopt its principles when it is launched on 16 February.

The Modern Slavery Toolkit will provide guidelines, training and best practice for the industry to address the growing issue of forced labour in the sector.

Blythe said the toolkit was influenced by other sectors including retail, where companies such as Primark, Next and retail bodies have banded together to address the issues of forced labour and exploitation in the supply chain.

He said: “A number of companies and contractors already have their own

We need to retain ageing workers, CIOB tells MPs The CIOB has told a group of MPs and experts that more effort needs to go into retaining ageing workers to help prevent a shortage of skilled workers post-Brexit.

The Institute is among a number of organisations giving evidence to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Excellence in Built Environment investigating the impact of Brexit on future skills needs in construction.

One of the key issues in the referendum vote last year was the free movement of people.This is of particular significance given the reliance of construction on workers from the EU both at a trades and professional level, and at a time when construction is already facing a chronic skills shortage.

Among the policy recommendations the CIOB included in its written evidence to the APPG in November was the need to put greater emphasis on mentoring and pastoral care if it wished to attract and retain young adults into the sector.

The issue of older workers was also highlighted. The CIOB said that construction firms and the industry as a whole needed to take urgent action to avoid its demographic bulge in older workers tipping rapidly into retirement over the next five to 10 years.

“Modern slavery isn’t just about people trafficking, but exploiting them once they get to their destination” Chris Blythe, CIOB

systems in place to tackle issues of slavery in the supply chain, but there’s nothing quite as cohesive as this that we believe covers the whole industry and whole companies, from boardroom right down to on site.”

He added that the toolkit will teach people how to spot signs of slavery, no matter how subtle, on site. As well as the report, which will be available in print and online, there will also be training, videos and posters put up on sites throughout the industry.

“People trafficking and forced labour is not just a problem in the Middle East or elsewhere, it happens in the UK, Europe and down the supply chain once you get into the area of sub-subcontractors. With Brexit the issue could get potentially a lot worse,” said Blythe.

“Modern slavery isn’t just about people trafficking, but about exploiting them

once they get to their destination,” he added.

The new toolkit follows on from the publication of the CIOB report Building a Fairer System: Tackling Modern Slavery in Construction Supply Chains, which was published over the summer.

The toolkit has been produced together with Stronger Together, a business-led, multi-stakeholder collaborative initiative whose purpose is to support organisations to tackle modern slavery in their supply chains. It also has the backing of UK antislavery commissioner Kevin Hyland and will be officially launched at a reception in the House of Lords in February.

Since its introduction in March 2015, the Modern Slavery Act has been galvanising the industry and making companies more aware of the need for better practice and monitoring of their supply chain.

Masterminds of Construction programme is live online

A news and current affairs style programme that focuses on construction management produced by the CIOB and ITN is now live on the Institute's website.

Masterminds of Construction aims to bring greater understanding about the value of construction and explore the career opportunities available to young people in the industry.

The programme is anchored by national newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky and follows on from the 2015 produced programme Building Tomorrow, which championed construction managers, celebrated innovation and encouraged the exchange of ideas.

Masterminds of Construction aims to bring greater understanding

Masterminds of Construction focuses on people as well as processes and explores the work of the individuals and teams driving change and striving for excellence within construction management.

It hopes to put a spotlight on the different careers the profession has to offer and show that it’s not just hard hats and blueprints and that there’s a vast array of opportunities available to women and men who want to make a difference to the world around them.

The programme features companies embracing cutting-edge technologies and students taking advantage of onthe-job education. It also examines why the industry wants greater diversity and looks at transforming views on how construction is perceived by those who work in it, as well as by the public.

Simon Shelley, head of industry news, ITN Productions, said: “We hope that the leaders in construction, and beyond, will engage with the programme and use it as a means to share ideas and stimulate discussion.”

The full programme can be viewed at www.ciob.org/masterminds-construction

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Chris Blythe Avoid the snakes to continue industry’s ascent

Art of Building reaches climax The Art of Building winner 2016 is set to be announced on 7 February.

Finalists for this year’s competition include photographs from Egypt, Ukraine, Paraguay and the UK. The public has been voting online for their favourite of the 15 shortlisted shots, with the photograph that gains the most votes earning that finalist the coveted title of Art of Building Photographer of the Year and a cash prize of £3,500.

The shortlist of final images was drawn up by a judging panel which included professional photographers, editors and communicators.

Among the finalists are New York City’s iconic Flatiron building, taken during the coastal storm Jonas in January 2016, with the building emerging from the blizzard like the bow of a giant ship ploughing through the wind and the snow.

The interaction between nature and

architecture is also explored in the People's Friendship Arch entry, from Kiev, Ukraine.

Also on the shortlist is a wind farm turned into a dandelion through multiple exposures and a photo that describes how modern architecture can be a conduit for people to express their faith.

To see all the images go to www.artofbuilding.org/

Top: People’s Friendship Arch

by Oleksandr Nesterovskyi Below: Flatiron Building in a Snowstorm by Michelle Palazzo.

Members sought for CIOB business and employment boards The CIOB is recruiting new members to its boards as it gears up for its five-year corporate plan.

There are openings for chartered members to join the Business Development Board as well as the Employment Engagement Board.

The openings are for those who want to get involved with new member recruitment, member retention and employer engagement.

The Business Development Board forms strategies for the development and delivery of products and services to members and the public worldwide.

It also reviews products and services provided to members, sets standards for the delivery and accessibility of those products and services; and monitors how well the Institute is doing against those standards.

The Employment Engagement Board aims to increase the overall global membership and help shape how it influences employers across different markets.

By 2020 the CIOB has set out a plan to have 6,000 non-chartered members upgrade to full chartered status.

Anyone interested or wishing to find out further information, please contact Sharon Stephens on sstephens@ciob.org.uk.

The old year ended with some interesting stories: Morrison Utility Services and Dyer & Butler being bought by US investor First Reserve and the claims arm of Hill International being scooped up by Bridgepoint.

Those stories, along with the one about the China National Building Materials Company’s plan to build six offsite housing plants, suggest that changes are afoot and that our industry is seen as a place of opportunity.

Other things, such as the increase in fines for health and safety breaches rightly to eye-watering levels, suggest that business cannot continue as usual, despite the desire to do so.

This is evidenced by the dire warnings going out to government about the impact of Brexit on the supply of skilled and semi-skilled, but essentially cheap, labour. Up to 215,000 people could be lost to the industry, it is claimed, but really it’s a plea for the status quo.

The pressure to change is as strong as ever and the question is whether events will happen that let the industry off the hook. In the past, just as we reach the cusp of change along comes a recession, the pressure is off, and the drive for innovation dies.

The classic indicators include more people staying in apprenticeships as an alternative to unemployment, new house buyer satisfaction increasing as house builders produce better quality in a buyers’ market. We see people improving their qualifications just to remain viable in a more challenging labour market. The snake of recession is an escape from the effort of climbing the ladder of opportunity.

But the current combination of events means that even a recession will not provide an escape. With the housing crisis, there is no chance that private sector housing providers can or will be inclined to provide the level of low-cost housing required.

A common plea is the industry needs to do more to be able to attract and retain women. The truth is it needs to do better for everyone — there is a growing mismatch between the aspirations of the people who work in the industry and many employers.

Some jobs ought to disappear with the greater application of technology.

In fact, it might be the case that rather than lament the shortages in an area, we eradicate the role altogether through innovation.

It was Oliver Cromwell who said: “He who stops being better, stops being good.” To be better we need the ladder not the snake.

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Views

We need to start linking tech to the bottom line

Feedback

AS CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES to digest the stark "modernise or die" message of the Farmer review, one of the liveliest debating points is, what role does the client play in this transformation?

The government has got the ball rolling by insisting that all public projects adopt building information modelling across their supply chains. Though adoption is still patchy, particularly among smaller firms, the edict has triggered action.

But there comes a point when investing in the future has to pay back. Companies want to see a clear correlation between investment and profit. For all its huge turnover, construction doesn’t have deep pockets: it needs to see quick payback for those investments in new technology and modern methods of construction.

Unfortunately, those that follow the Farmer vision don’t always reap the benefits. Take Laing O’Rourke. Despite training its own workforce and investing heavily in offsite manufacturing and other technology, it racked up hefty losses last year. Meanwhile, volume house builders have continued to post huge profits on the back of the status quo.

By demanding construction companies comply with Level 2 BIM, public sector clients have at least created a level playing field for the construction industry — there’s no option but to invest. On the whole, the private sector wants a good service from its constructors and consultants, but what it does in the machine room is its business. So, without market disruption, can we move on sufficiently quickly from the bad old ways?

Construction often does best when a client demands change and flexes its

Skills lesson isn't being learned

muscles to make things happen. Crossrail asked contractors to pay £25,000 into a research and development club to share new ideas and technology. The venture is now continuing separately from Crossrail as the Infrastructure Industry Innovation Platform i3P (see page 34).

Similarly, it was Asda’s fiat that pushed small architectural practice James & Ward to embrace BIM. The firm says it’s now 70% more efficient and has a more diverse client base as a result (page 3839). Initiating impactful change is clearly something from which not only bigger companies benefit.

Aware that clients can drive industrywide, long-term change in a way that contractors, beholden to the City, rarely can, Farmer suggests taxing them if they don’t buy construction work that drives industry innovation or skills development.

Intriguing, but it’s difficult to see how it would work. We need to start collecting more hard evidence linking new construction technology and BIM directly to efficiencies and the bottom line.

Here’s the kind of linkage that should get the ball rolling. James Pellatt, head of projects at Great Portland Estates writes on CM’s website: “As a private sector developer, we have been providing clientled federated BIM models for the past five years. We are now on our eighth project and the results speak for themselves.

For every £1 we invest in BIM we and the contractors save £2. I simply don't understand why other developers don't do the same.”

Nor do we. More please.

Denise Chevin, editor

BIM survey We will once again be surveying readers to find out more about the uptake of BIM and the measured benefits it is producing to both companies and projects. We have now launched the Annual CM BIM survey and would be delighted if you could take part.

To do so please visit https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BIM17.

Steve Perkins, via website Once again I have to write about the crippling skills shortage (Redrow chief: house building full steam ahead for 2017, online). As a lecturer in a west midlands college why have I in my class 19 full-time students who want to be architects and quantity surveyors? They would love to be working and learning in the industry.

It seems to me we have the wannabe QSs, but we just don't have the employers willing to train up the new blood for the industry. The sooner the government's apprenticeship levy is introduced the better off we will all be in the industry.

Changes easier said than done M A Underwood, via website I agree with the gist of this article but collaboration is going to be difficult to achieve as long as designers, contractors and specialist subcontractors are in competition for first place with clients (Tools alone won't change our culture, January 2017). This promotes mistrust.

Also, companies at all levels require a steady and controlled flow of work to operate efficiently. This is not achievable in the market place.

Paul Steels, via website Good point Gary. You're quite correct in what you're saying, and the industry is far too slow to get on board with the changes that it desperately needs.

Both the Egan and Latham reports were written when I was still in college and are only now more common practice within the industry.

I have had similar experiences in the company I currently work for, when I have informed those in the upper levels about new legislation coming in, about sustainable development and necessary changes needed just to remain competitive, that have taken three years for them to be implemented.

The other point that you have raised about quality being replaced over cost, I have seen on every site that I have visited.

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Vox pop What changes or recommendations would you like to see in the light of the upcoming CITB review?

Mike Smith FCIOB

Patrick Flaherty

Managing director, Corniche Builders A review of the CITB is long overdue since it simply isn’t working. In the past far too much money has been wasted on administration and not gone back into training. Whilst it is a levy it is in simple terms a "training tax" which has been badly administered with various training groups also set up which have funds in limbo. It needs to be looked at by industry and not politicians/civil servants/ educationalists.

Chief executive — UK and Ireland, Aecom With the UK facing a longterm skills shortage and the baby boom generation edging towards retirement, a reformed training board can only be positive for the construction industry.

The emergence of BIM and other technologies, as well as a greater focus on offsite construction, gives an opportunity for a re-energised and redirected CITB. Any recommendations that focus on innovation to encourage the development of new skills are therefore welcome.

Maria Seabright HR & finance director, Greendale Construction My main concern would be changes to the apprenticeship levy, which is currently only relevant to employers with an annual PAYE bill above £3m. At the moment, this does not affect Greendale, so we will still only have to pay one levy — to the CITB. But if the CITB levy does not continue I don't know how smaller organisations will be able to train and get grants back from the CITB and this would have a massive impact on the industry.

I think the CITB should look at reducing its levy criteria to make it more affordable for smaller organisations, especially ones that train.

I am quite ashamed sometimes to be associated with the industry when you see how much people are prepared to cut corners and basically put a smart finish over the top of the issue then bodge it and scarper.

One of the main things I think that has been lost is pride in the job. These days it's not about quality, it's cost and who can they blame and claim from if it goes wrong, even if it's their own fault.

Companies will spend more time and money proving who's at fault than they do in getting it right in the first place.

Wellbeing starts with education David Benson, via website This is a great and positive contribution to dealing with the perceived ills of the industry, but how sad that it should come to this? (Meet the stress busters, January

Bruce Boughton People development manager, Lovell Partnerships It is very positive that CITB has been changing rapidly over the last 12 months and it is clear the process will continue this year. We welcome the increased communication and engagement that CITB has demonstrated during this time as it grapples with the new apprenticeship levy, reducing costs and the need for an entirely new grant scheme. In the summer a revised levy/ grant will be proposed and it will then be for industry to decide whether there is a consensus for the CITB to continue or not.

"If the CITB levy does not continue I don't know how smaller organisations will be able to train and get grants back."

Maris Seabright, Greendale Construction

2017) Needing a structured approach to mindfulness and wellbeing is a real indictment of how far our industry has fallen behind those industries that have been innovative and sought a better way of doing business.

Education of the top players in the industry is the key, some are already on this journey, but still a long way behind.

Maybe we should push for this type of culture change in the industry and demand it as part of our selection procedures.

Ian Heptinstall, via website A great initiative for the industry. Projects are hard enough, without the industry making it harder, as it does. If we want to sustainably reduce the levels of personal stress, we also need to tackle the contracting and planning practices that we use. These reinforce the overly aggressive

Stephen Wielebski FCIOB Principal consultant, W A Consultancy The apprenticeship levy will help but the fruits of this investment will not be fully realised for at least two years or more. Moreover, what is vital to the success of any such scheme is the provision of training and career development matched to the technological and practical needs of the industry.

At main board level a change to "technical" rather than "fiscal" leadership will be one of the key requirements if we are to succeed. Finally, what about harnessing the knowledge and experience of those close to retirement? Rather than discard the effective contribution that they are able to make why not make it a more attractive proposition to retain such a rich source of experience and to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and skills to younger generations? Perhaps something to consider as we begin our journey in 2017?

culture that is described in this article, and whilst helping people to cope is a great first step, shouldn't we also be removing a major cause of the problem too?

Contractors at root of PPE issue

Contact us Do you have an opinion on any of this month’s articles? Email: constructionmanager@atom publishing.co.uk

Dave Briggs, via website As a site manager I'm fully aware of these issues regarding suitability of gloves, glasses etc for tasks (Don't let a pair of gloves land you in trouble, online). The problem is the contractors we employ who only buy one type of glove, glasses etc because they have priced the job so tight they can't afford to buy the correct PPE for each task. I have at times bought the correct PPE for the operatives because their employers will not do this to protect them. I just don't see why we keep using these contractors just because they are cheap, we need to help them.

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Comment Mark Beard

Brexit puts our shortcomings in focus Construction needs less but stronger leadership if it is to play its part in getting Britain in shape for leaving the EU, says Mark Beard.

HISTORIANS WILL LOOK back on 2016 as

momentous year for the Anglo Saxon world: Donald Trump being elected president of the United States; the UK voting to leave the European Union; and Ireland, beating the mighty All Blacks, ending a 111-year wait.

In 2017, we look forward, with renewed optimism, to the British Lions’ three-match series against the All Blacks, as well as meeting new chancellor Philip Hammond’s Autumn Statement challenge to get Britain “match fit” for Brexit.

In my view, it is relatively easy for government to damage a thriving economy, but much harder for a prime minister, chancellor or business secretary to have a significant positive short-term impact on the economy.

Keeping a fairly light rein on day-to-day expenditure, while freeing up the small amount of funds available for investment in science, skills and infrastructure felt to me like a good first step to getting us in shape for Brexit. Simplifying our tax system and minimising the direct taxation the poorest pay would be a good second step. Two taxes I would look closely at are employee’s national insurance, and rates on empty property rates and fixed plant.

The Coalition government and current Conservative administration have increasingly highlighted infrastructure investment as a social and economic priority. With Hinkley Point, HS2 and Heathrow expansion all taking significant steps forward in the past three months, the government’s £500bn 10-year capital expenditure pipeline is beginning to look more realistic.

As an industry, we have pleaded with government to spend more on our national infrastructure for years and it is pleasing to see political parties of all persuasions accepting the merits of our arguments. But how ready are we to

deliver these projects efficiently, promptly and without fault?

I would say “mixed”. Our sites are infinitely better organised and safer than 10 years ago, we are less adversarial, work more constructively with our supply chain and are beginning to embed digital working into our daily activities. But too many projects are delivered late or with functional defects.

Fragmented representation The recent merger of Constructing Excellence and the Building Research Establishment and the UK Contractors Group and the National Specialist Contractors Council combining to form Build UK are positive signs that the industry is coming together. However, our representation to government and our efforts to improve all still feel fragmented and consequently poorly funded.

Recent management changes at CITB have not helped, but I am sure an industry with one clear voice would have had a much better chance of avoiding the double blow of CITB and national training levies. Much of the funds raised are spent on administration and training which is only partly relevant to our needs.

At Beard, we spend several hundred thousand pounds a year on training and developing our staff — it gives us a competitive edge and helps make us an employer of choice. We do not need the added frictional costs and frustration of

“I am sure an industry with one clear voice would have had a much better chance of avoiding the double blow of CITB and national training levies.”

paying and seeking to reclaim two government imposed levies to invest in our people. However, if levies are to be part of our trading landscape, I would be happier if priority was given to training which helps us develop as a modern, digitally engaged industry and channelled to smaller companies that would not otherwise train their staff.

One sector which has benefited from strong sector leadership is manufacturing.

EEF, the trade body for engineering and manufacturing employers, is a wellresourced, well-respected organisation which represents large and small manufacturers alike, has clout with key government departments and consequently is able to provide strong leadership for and to its members.

Whether through continued voluntary mergers of the plethora of representative organisations in our industry or a major outside figure or event forcing change, I believe that we will be better able to play our part in making Britain ready for Brexit by coming together with less but stronger industry leadership. How exciting it would be if Build UK could invite the National Federation of Builders, Federation of Master Builders and eventually the British Property Federation to join.

It feels to me that whether we were leavers or remainers, the challenge now is to create a thriving, dynamic economy which is the envy of the remaining 27 EU members, ensuring they are as eager to maintain access to 65 million prosperous British customers as we are to maintain access to 440 million European customers.

A modern, efficient and collaborative construction industry, which had one voice and looked forward to the new digital world, would be a good start to making us “match fit” for Brexit.

Mark Beard is executive chairman of Beard Construction

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Comment Steve Hodgson

Bonfield review falls a few steps short The Bonfield report is well-intentioned, but if the green agenda is to catch on with homeowners better guarantees and smart meters are a good start, says Steve Hodgson.

SO THE LONG-AWAITED AND much-anticipated

Bonfield report was quietly published before chrismas. Each Home Counts is a brave and well-intentioned attempt to set a framework to promote the sustainable growth of the retrofit insulation and renewable energy industry in the UK and in doing so tackle the issue of C02 emissions in domestic building. These are responsible for approximately a quarter of UK C02 emissions. About 5.5 million homes in Great Britain lack cavity wall insulation and 92% of solid-walled homes are uninsulated.

Although the report attempts to deal with the big issues across no fewer than 27 recommendations, it lacks clarity and boldness in places and fails to deal with some of the more pernicious technical knowledge gaps that dogged past initiatives and that are starting to come back to bite us.

What stands out is the question of whether it will seed another boom in the retrofit and microgeneration sectors, without dealing with what used to be “unintended consequences”, but are now the anticipated consequences of retrofit.

Collectively we still don’t really understand the full implications of the changes in holistic building performance which come with making older buildings perform like new ones.

What we do know is that buildings which are sealed and encased with insulation use less energy. However, we still don’t really know how much less they use. We know that some of the energysaving measures affect the way the old building manages water loading. We don’t know how this plays out in the long term or how to deal with repairing and maintaining retrofit buildings.

The acknowledgement of these issues and the opportunity to create strategies to manage the now “expected consequences” of retrofit seem to be missing from the report.

The review is a result of past failures.

Not only the failure to sell the Green Deal, but also the failure to prevent a rush to the bottom by contractors, utilities and a government driven by volume rather than quality. Add in erratic changes in funding available as grants — and an Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme which was in no way fit-for-purpose — and we are halfway there.

There was also the desperate lack of enthusiasm from homeowners and evidence that the work carried out often failed to deliver the energy savings or commercial returns promised. Finally, with the growing catalogue of damp-related problems in homes which have been “improved” it’s no surprise the grand project failed.

The report makes a great deal of the protection consumers will get from a new Consumer Charter, a Code of Conduct, a Quality Mark and alternative dispute resolution. This is fine and very useful if defects are found quickly. However, in my experience, deboning panels, water penetration, cold spots and internal atmospheric moisture problems may take years to come to light.

The report sees this and asks for the creation of a “Single Promise Guarantee”.

Regardless of the unusual nature of this title, I see no means of making this work unless the insurance companies needed to underwrite the scheme can charge big premiums.

However, the proposal to create robust and deliverable standards should be

For a longer version of this article please visit our website

“The proposal to create robust and deliverable standards should be welcomed. When written, applied and adopted properly they work.”

welcomed. When written, applied and adopted properly they work. Industry must take the lead, but support and buy-in from DCLG and the Building Regulations is a must.

Dr Bonfield acknowledges the lack of well-trained people in the sector and makes provision for improvement. But the report fails to acknowledge the basic reason for the current lack of investment in these skills: until employers can be assured of constant and predictable workstreams, confidence will be weak and so will any investment in skills.

Arguably the biggest failing of ECO and the Green Deal was the lack of design liability built into the system of product specification. In normal procurement, a surveyor, architect or QS will be responsible for drafting a specification which is then skilfully delivered by trained and competent tradesmen. If the design is defective the professionals take the rap and if the workmanship is faulty it is down to the contractor.

The report attempts to provide a means of setting a normalised route for design and delivery, but it needs to go one small, but fundamentally important, step further — professional indemnity insurance must be made mandatory for system designers. Without it, there is no real safety net.

Every Home Counts also supports the swift and comprehensive roll out of smart meters. With the support of government and the energy companies, this measure alone has the capacity to fundamentally change the way we consider, use and produce energy at home.

Let’s hope that a programme of advice and awareness which supports the delivery of smart metering includes information on maintaining a healthy equilibrium using energy and ventilation in a balanced way.

Steve Hodgson is chief executive of the Property Care Association

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Feature Development

VIEWS FROM THE TOP What’s the outlook like for commercial development in the wake of Brexit?

Denise Chevin checks out the figures and interviews leading clients.

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Feature Development

JASON HAWKES

“The balance is on a knife edge. If we have a soft Brexit, 15-20% of the projects in the pipeline for 2018-19 will be delayed.

If it’s hard Brexit then this is more likely to be 40-50%.”

Mat Oakley, Savills

WHEN EVEN THE ultra-conservative Bank of England owns up to a “Michael Fish moment” you know that predicting the impact of the Brexit is turning out to be as easy as selecting the winning numbers for the national lottery. And so it is with forecasting what’s in store for the UK commercial property market. Contrasting views and lack of hard evidence means it is difficult to call whether and by how much new development looks set to be curtailed, leaving emptier order books for contractors and consultants specialising in commercial offices and mixed-use schemes.

Richard Trelfell, UK head of infrastructure, building and construction at KPMG, is unequivocal in his take on it all: “2017 will be a year of feast and famine for the construction industry.

Infrastructure contractors will be getting fatter as HS2 and a further raft of road schemes get underway; commercial contractors will be going on a diet as corporate demand plays the Brexit Blues.”

Towards the end of last year three of the biggest players — British Land, Land Securities and Great Portland Estates — all reported hefty losses and a gloomy prognosis on the back of Brexit.

As one developer from the brakes-on camp put it: “Market conditions are unlikely to be supportive in the next year — costs are going up. To develop or not to develop is all around the debate on what immigration will be permissible post-Brexit.”

But against this there has also been more positive news: Apple and Google are going ahead with huge new office headquarters in London, and on the speculative development side Malaysian developer AlloyMtd Group has appointed Mace to start its £500m mixed-use suite of buildings for One Crown Place in the City of London. And there were gasps of surprise when the developers of £1bn skyscraper 22 Bishopsgate finally gave the scheme the green light after months of “will it go or won’t it”.

So certainly it’s by no means all doom and gloom.

Mat Oakley, head of Savills European Commercial Research, says: “Most people thought that 22 Bishopsgate would be cancelled in the wake of the Brexit vote, but it wasn’t and though a number of schemes were stalled initially after the

decision in June, the number of actual projects delayed is very small.”

Research by Oakley shows that there is 7.6m sq ft of speculative office development underway in the City of London and the West End and during 2017-18 there will be the best part of 5.5m sq ft. “Currently there’s 4m sq ft of developments planned to start in 2019 — that’s in the City alone,” he adds.

“The balance is on a knife edge. If we have a soft Brexit, 15-20% of the projects in the pipeline for 2018-19 will be delayed. If it’s hard Brexit then this is more likely to be 40-50% as banks and corporations move jobs out of London.

But at the moment there is little evidence to back up either scenario. And we’re unlikely to get much clarity until at least the middle of the year.

“Anecdotally, a lot of developers are looking back and seeing the success of Land Securities, which built the Walkie Talkie, and Canary Wharf Group. Both carried on developing during the recession, so at the end of it the Walkie Talkie [20 Fenchurch Street] was one of the few new Grade A buildings coming on stream and achieved record rents.

“In some ways developers are hoping that the competition will pull out, so they can be in that position.”

Outside of London, Oakley says development will continue in the big regional cities — Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol and Edinburgh — 7m sq ft in 2017 and 1m sq ft in 2018 with a slowdown after that.

Foreign investment One of the factors determining whether speculative development is going ahead or not is foreign investment. Certainly attracting foreign investment into the London market doesn’t appear to be a problem. “Of the 20 projects completing in 2018 — 15 are non-domestic backed,” says Oakley. One of those backing London is HB Reavis with hugely ambitious plans for the capital. It says the impact of Brexit will be “minor and temporary” (see overleaf).

There are several reasons why foreign investors have more confidence in the market. The fall in the pound has lowered the cost of the initial investment, but they still have to get their money out at the other end, so that is not the only driver. > CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | FEBRUARY 2017 | 19

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Feature Development

> As one UK funded developer says: “Maybe people from other parts of the world don’t see Brexit as the big deal we do, or they come from parts of the world with huge uncertainty and by comparison London is still a safe bet.”

But as well as a downturn in the economy, clients are also worried about costs rising from a reduction in migrant labour and a rise in materials costs from the weaker pound, which will challenge developer margins and make schemes unviable.

The rise of refurbishment One trend we’re likely to see more of is a shift away from new build to refurbishment, where the scale and length of projects is shorter and therefore less risky. The Deloitte Crane Survey released in November, which covers seven major office markets in the capital, reported that the amount of all types of office construction in central London had hit 14.8m sq ft — the highest since 2008.

The survey, which runs for the six months to the end of September, said 40 new starts had been made during the period. But refurbishment work accounted Slovakia’s HB Reavis looks to replicate eastern for 28 — almost three-quarters — of these European success in the UK, writes Tom Ravenscroft. projects with the survey reporting the amount of new construction activity is In 2013, Central Europe’s largest office down 42% on the previous figure. developer, HB Reavis, set its sights on Resolution Property is adopting this London. The goal was to replicate the approach ( see page 22). success it has had on home turf over the Chris Lewis, head of occupier past 20 years, and to become a major advisory at Deloitte Real Estate, says: player in the London construction and “Refurbishments… highlight the development market. opportunity that developers can deliver HB Reavis was founded in Bratislava, into a market that still has low levels of Slovakia, and following the fall of Tomáš Jurdák: “London is a key market for us” available office space.”

Communism, established its reputation by But as well as the uncertainty, Brexit is developing high-end offices for ensuring that those developers that do go international brands needing a presence ahead are looking to minimise risks in the country. Outgrowing the Slovakian through procurement. The glory days of market, it expanded across Central and construction management certainly show Eastern Europe, opening offices first in little sign of returning with two-stage neighbouring Czech Republic, then Poland tender and D&B very much the name of and Hungary to become a powerhouse in the game. And while creating wellbeing is the region. In 2015 HB Reavis brought the biggest buzzword in town in terms of 273,000 sq m of office space to market, design, in terms of the construction making it the third largest commercial process itself, developers don’t seem to be developer in Europe, according to taking any pages from the government’s PropertyEU’s Top Developers survey. book and mandating BIM. To grow the company further, In terms of the overall market more establishing an office in London was the optimism seems to be returning to next logical step for the developer. “We commercial development after the big were looking to diversify our portfolio by shock in June, though don’t expect expanding outside of Central and Eastern

The ambitious newcomer

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Feature Development

“In the short term, yes Brexit may have an impact, but we believe that this will be minor and temporary” Tomáš Jurdák, HB Reavis

Europe. London is undoubtedly the most developed real estate market in Europe, with long-term strength and a transparent manner of operating — it seemed a great fit for HB Reavis, and has proven as much since we entered,” explains Tomáš Jurdák, UK CEO of HB Reavis.

The developer currently has three schemes under development in the city, including a 12-storey commercial development incorporating more than 100,000 sq ft of Grade A office accommodation at 20 Farringdon Street and the refurbishment of a 75,000 sq ft office on Southwark Street. The jewel in HB Reavis’ London portfolio, however, is the Brexit-defying 33 Central on London Bridge. “It’s our first scheme in London, which we recently sold to US bank Wells Fargo for £300m — one of the single largest office deals of the year, and the first major transaction in the City following the referendum vote,” says Jurdák.

On the subject of Brexit, HB Reavis is bullish. As a privately owned company it believes it can take the opportunity to invest while others may not have the appetite. “In the process of choosing where HB Reavis should expand to first outside of CEE, we chose the UK because it is an undeniably robust financial centre, in or out of the EU,” says Jurdák. “In the

short term, yes Brexit may have an impact, but we believe that this will be minor and temporary — and in fact, could present an investment opportunity for us.

We developed in Bratislava when others weren’t interested, and it’s gone very well for us.”

The developer has big ambitions for London, which it sees as being a global showcase for its brand, and is aiming to begin developing another half a dozen sites in 2017 alone. “There’s no doubt that London is a key market for us,” continues Jurdák. “As an integrated development company, with control every step of the way from procurement through to asset management, we can take a term-long view — and in the long term, we are very confident in the London market.”

HB Reavis is aiming to replicate its entry and firm establishment in Poland, to which it expanded in 2008, says Jurdák.

In only a few years, the developer became one of the key players in the Warsaw commercial property market, which currently accounts for 30% of its business.

“We want to mirror that success. We are now rebalancing our portfolio and intend

to focus a third of our development pipeline here [in London] by 2019.”

Compared to Central and Eastern Europe, London has a much more developed office market. “The major difference is that the company must discover a completely different supply chain. We have yet to develop long term relationships in London — though we are on our way,” says Jurdák.

“Even though we have our own construction arm of the business, we look to partner with high-quality consultants who know the market,” he adds. At 20 Farringdon, for example, HB Reavis appointed Aecom Construction Services as official delivery partner, which ensures flexibility in the workforce and resources for the project.

This desire to create long-term partnerships is Jurdák’s key driver for selecting suppliers, and obviously if a supplier performs well, HB Reavis is happy to use them again. “We enjoyed working with John Robertson Architects, the designers on 33 Central, so much that we’ve hired them for a project in Bratislava,” explains Jurdák.

“Professionalism, integrity, honesty, are essential characteristics of a supplier,” adds Paul Neto, managing director of HB Reavis Construction. “They must also >

Above left and above: One of HB Reavis’s London projects was the refurbishment of a 75,000 sq ft office on Southwark Street.

Below left: A Fosterdesigned tower in Warsaw will be taller than the Shard

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Feature Development

The regeneration specialist Residential developer First Base is about to get a lot busier with its involvement in Silvertown Quays.

HB Reavis partnered with Aecom for its office development at 20 Farringdon Road

> always ensure that safety is first and deliver on promises.”

Neto also notes that what makes a subcontractor really stand out is coming forward with solutions the client hasn’t already come up with. “If you’re a professional contractor, you’re an expert in what you do and can really help drive value and innovation. When we can learn something new, we find it a very beneficial partnership.”

The clear message from Jurdák and his team is that HB Reavis is determined to make London a showcase for the company’s work, and if the trajectory here matches that of Poland then we will be seeing a lot more developments by the company.

We may even see a landmark project in the not-too-distant future too, as the company has recently announced the development of a tower in Warsaw, designed by Foster + Partners, that is set to be taller than the Shard, making it the tallest building in Europe outside of Russia. “We are design-led and client-focused, so given the right circumstances, a landmark structure would not be not outside the realm of possibility,” concludes Jurdák.

“We want people coming to us with innovation. We like contractors where their people find solutions.”

Phil Wade, First Base

Below: Resolution’s new take on refurbishment includes a cycle route into the Alphabeta building

First base is a name we're going to be hearing more of. The London-based residential developer is not only aiming to take its special brand of high-quality mixed-use schemes outside of the capital, it’s also stepping into the major league as one of the key partners and driver of the £5bn regeneration of Silvertown Quays in east London. This is a 10-12-year project to build out an estimated 50 commercial buildings and 3,000 new homes, parks, schools and health facilities.

The development team, called the Silvertown Partnership, comprises First Base, Chelsfield, and Australian firm Macquarie Capital. First Base is providing the development management services.

First Base has been procuring between £20m and £40m worth of construction work a year for projects worth in the £30m-£50m range — and there are three of these currently in the pipeline. But this volume of work will rise significantly in the near future as the first £500m phase of the 62-acre Silvertown regeneration project gets underway. Infrastructure work on the three-year first phase is expected to start in 2018 — with construction of homes and commercial

elements a year later. The first phase will comprise 850 units and include restoration of Millennium Mills, an art deco former flour mill last used in the 1980s.

First Base could opt for greater use of offsite construction on the development.

Phil wade, operations director says: “For the first phase we're looking at a number of innovative techniques, including modular construction with cross-laminated timber, or pre-cast concrete. We want to cut down the wastage and interface on site. We are also considering building homes with bathrooms and kitchens already fitted.”

The refurbishment pioneer Funky, creative offices are all in a day’s work for Resolution Property.

Kitting out offices to appeal to millennials and providing a healthy and fun working environment for staff may be catching on, but Resolution Property can claim to be one of the pace setters.

“I think we are the market leader in considering the occupier needs in a different way,” says Adam Goldin. The chartered surveyor joined Resolution as head of UK investment in August 2016 after eight years with Delancey.

“It’s no longer about the CEO’s parking space but about wellbeing and attractiveness to talent,” he adds.

Typically, offices developed by Resolution include gyms, artisan cafes and pizza bars, and at its highly successful Alphabeta

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Feature Development

Above: First Base is a key partner in the £5bn redevelopment of Silvertown

“It’s no longer about the CEO’s parking space but about wellbeing and attractiveness to talent, Adam Goldin, Resolution Property

A newcomer to the PRS market, Legal & General, is investing millions in the construction of a new offsite factory to build thousands of new homes offsite itself. Wade says First Base may consider that, but would also look at suppliers. L&G is “making everyone in the sector sit up and take notice”, he says.

For the first phase at Silvertown £100m of infrastructure will be built, including a new £20m bridge linking the site to the new Custom House station on the Elizabeth line. Overall, 35% of homes across the development will be affordable, though the first phase will be around

21%. First Base prides itself on designing homes to be tenure blind, says Wade.

Another hallmark of First Base is use of top drawer architects and Silvertown Quays is no exception, where the project’s design panel reads like an architectural who’s who” Herzog & de Meuron; Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners; David Chipperfield; and AHMM to name some.

Away from Silvertown, First Base has three more projects in the pipeline.

Wandall Terrace in Earlsfield, southwest London, is a scheme of around 130 units awaiting planning consent.

Another on Tower Bridge Road consists of apartments, a short stay hotel and commercial units, also in for planning.

And in its first foray out of London, the redevelopment of Anston House in Brighton, which has been abandoned for more than 25 years, received planning consent before Christmas.

Wade says First Base is looking to develop in other towns and cities where housing demand is high, including Cambridge, Oxford and Reading.

First Base has traditionally used a two-stage approach to select contractors, which have usually been the biggest players. However, given a number have racked up problems with residential, Wade says he is now turning to the next tier down with the likes of McLaren, Willmott Dixon, Ardmore and Graham in favour.

For the first phase of Silvertown, First

Base will be looking to start the selection process mid-year. “We don’t select on cheapest price. It’s more about their experiences and the team put forward and whether the culture fit feels right.

“I like people to be honest and if there is a problem tell us about it, rather than burying their heads in the hands.”

“We want people coming to us with innovation. We like contractors where their people find solutions.”

“I’m impressed by new technology and BIM is a really useful tool. I think it’s been good that government has made it mandatory. But for us, its use has not yet been a criteria of our selection.”

Wade says that First Base procures usually through two stage tender, putting no more than four on a tender list and then awarding contracts under the JCT major works D&B. Like other developers interviewed, Wade says there has been little impact as yet from Brexit, either from buyers or suppliers. “There’s clearly been a few wobbles in the prime London market, but we build in the £600-£800 sq ft market, not the £1,500 sq ft bracket.

On the cost side, contractors are still being choosy, though we expect costs to go up because of the volume of imported materials.

“I am worried about the skills gap. I don’t know how we're going to build the 250,000 homes need a year we need.”

scheme in Shoreditch cyclists can ride straight in on the ground floor.

Resolution has acquired, developed, financed and disposed of more than €2.6bn of assets in Europe across all sectors since its establishment in 1998, and managed more than 20 million sq ft of property, predominantly in the office, retail, residential and mixed-use sectors.

In the UK construction spend is between £50m and £100m a year — mostly in London, but there are have also been projects outside the capital, including Manchester and Bristol.

Projects tend to be in the £10m-£20m bracket. Goldin dubs their development approach “upcycling defurbishment” — stripping back outdated offices, often in emerging creative quarters, and turning them in to funky and high-quality working environments.

“In terms of Brexit we’ve not seen a significant fall in prices coming in from contractors, but there seems to be more appetite,” says Goldin. He also points to the likely cost increases from materials and labour which could make viability of projects an issue.

“From our perspective, we’re very measured and not afraid of changing direction to suit the risk, but as a refurbishment and extension specialist, we see some of what we do as countercyclical. So, I’d say we’re cautiously proceeding.”

Goldin is leading on London projects including the delivery of a new masterplan for the 560,000 sq ft Thomas More Square office campus in London E1 — now rebranded as Moretown — with confirmation of a prelet to Gensler, the world’s largest architecture, design,

planning and consulting practice.

Other projects include the 93,000 sq ft Black Lion House office development in Whitechapel and the Old Gramophone Works mixed-use scheme in Notting Hill.

In terms of what Resolution looks for in its contracting chain, Goldin says there are no hard-and-fast rules in terms of procurement. Instead it tends to be via a mixture of negotiated contracts and twostage tenders. For projects up to £10m Resolution gravitates to family run firms — “where they take great pride in their reputation and where their interests align with ours.”

The use of BIM is not crucial to selection, however. “We’re always open to new ideas and certainly want contractors to bring solutions.

But there has got to be time/cost benefit,” says Goldin.

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The diversity champion Why Urban & Civic likes working with regional contractors and house builders across its wide-ranging portfolio.

Developers don’t come much more diverse than Urban & Civic, which combines its strategic land banks on four key sites that can supply 20,000 new homes over the next decade with a range of commercial and mixed-use schemes which are delivered with shorter timescales. The strategic sites will also see the construction of more than 3m sq ft of business space, at least 11 primary and three secondary schools.

Richard Hepworth, director of project management at Urban & Civic, describes the business model as “unique” and says: “We don’t have 100% concentration in any one sector.”

Urban & Civic is currently contracted on 17 separate building and infrastructure contracts across seven of its development sites which it is progressing in parallel with works on its strategic sites.

Hepworth heads the 11-strong project management team which delivers all of Urban & Civic’s developments and procures designers and contractors, often on framework contracts.

Four further sites are due to be developed in 2017, ranging from a 300unit apartment scheme in Manchester, a leisure and retail scheme in north Yorkshire and a large leisure development in the West Midlands. Urban & Civic expects to procure around £60m-£80m of construction during 2017, of which half is estimated to be infrastructure related.

“We are concerned about shortages of trades contractors like concrete, cladding and M&E specialists.”

Richard Hepworth, Urban & Civic

Top: Urban & Civic is building 5,000 homes and 3m sq ft of business space at Alconbury Weald in Cambridgeshire

Urban & Civic operates a different model from house builders for the strategic land sites by working as a master developer. This involves decontaminating the land and preparing the development platform for house builders as a serviced plot, drawing up a masterplan and installing highways and utilities infrastructure, inclusive of all planning and technical approvals.

The planning approvals obtained by Urban & Civic establish the design code, mix and quantum to set the framework for residential developers to work within.

Most deals have been done with regional house builders in 150-200 unit parcels.

Alconbury Weald, acquired by Urban & Civic in 2009, is the largest and the most advanced of the strategic sites. This is a former Cambridgeshire Cold War airfield and is currently under development with outline planning consent for 5,000 new homes and an Enterprise Zone with 3m sq ft of business space. Two commercial office buildings have been completed, one is under construction and a further four are due on site before the end of 2017.

At Rugby, the former BT long-wave transmission centre is under development as a strategic extension to the town for 6,200 new homes. A third site is the development of the former barracks and airfield just north of Cambridge as part of a new strategic settlement at Waterbeach, where an outline planning

application is being prepared. Finally, the strategic extension to Newark is under development with the first house builder application in for planning.

In terms of the market, Hepworth says he has observed more nervousness since Brexit with contractors seeking to ensure workload. “We are concerned about shortages of trades contractors like concrete, cladding and M&E specialists,” he says. “It’s forced us to look carefully at design in terms of second tier contractors and who is available.

Contractors are selected on a mixture of tendered and negotiated frameworks. Of the last 23 contracts let 10 were secured by either single-stage or two-stage tendering, three by direct single source negotiation and 10 negotiated from existing frameworks.

“We like to partner with regional contractors on both infrastructure and building contracts. As such we have agreements in place with contractors such as Jacksons and Breheny on the civil engineering works and RG Carter and Stepnell on building works. However, we recognise this is not always practical.”

Hepworth says that when Urban & Civic selects contractors it’s not as interested in their use of technology or BIM prowess.

“It’s about honesty and transparency, understanding what we’re about and how we can build the delivery ethos with our design and construction partners.” CM

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Onsite Crossrail

STATION TO STATION As Crossrail enters the home stretch we take an in-depth look at its progress. On pages 30-33 we go onsite at Tottenham Court Road, on pages 34-36 we look at some of the new technology it has pioneered, while we begin here with a journey through the 10 new stations.

Above: The completed station at Canary Wharf makes a striking architectural statement

THE £14.8BN CROSSRAIL programme is Europe’s biggest infrastructure project.

Construction began in 2009 at Canary Wharf, and the programme is now 80% complete and is on time and budget. The newlines and stations will become the Elizabeth Line, running from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through new tunnels under central London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

Tunnelling finished in 2015 and the project is now focused on the complex job of fitting out the stations and tunnels with the equipment and systems needed to operate the railway. This includes the installation of track, ventilation,

power, signalling, communications and overhead line equipment.

There will be 40 Elizabeth line stations including 10 new stations at Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street, Whitechapel, Canary Wharf, Custom House, Woolwich and Abbey Wood.

Services through central London are due to start in December 2018. The railway will be fully integrated with Transport for London’s existing transport network and will reduce journey times, increase central London’s rail capacity by 10% and bring an extra 1.5 million people to within 45 minutes of the capital.

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Paddington — a modern take on a Victorian icon

In 2017 the new station at the west end of Oxford Street will rise from ground level as work on the two street level ticket halls — the west on Davies Street and the east on Hanover Square — nears completion.

Below ground, the station’s 255m-long platforms are structurally complete, and the architectural cladding, which will appear in all the new underground Elizabeth line stations, is being installed.

The ticket halls and back-of-house rooms, which sink to depths of 28m, are in place and being filled with numerous mechanical and electrical components needed to operate the station.

At each end of the station, two tall ventilation shafts have been built, and the mechanical systems to control the air flow are now being manoeuvred piece by piece into the station and fitted into position.

Station architect Weston Williamson Engineer design Aecom Main contractor Costain/Skanska JV Urban realm designers Gillespies/URS/ Weston Williamson Station structure Box Excavated material 315,000t Depth below ground 20m The new Elizabeth line station at Paddington is a concrete box structure over 200m long built directly to the south of Brunel’s original 1853 station.

The box, which reaches 20m below street level, is structurally complete and the platforms and ticket hall are in place.

15 escalators are being installed, and the steelwork for the single central lift is complete, ready for the mechanism and glazing to be installed.

Many of the architectural features, including brick panels that line the walls and the bronze panels that clad the elliptical columns, are in place.

In the spring of 2017 work will begin on the striking glass and steel canopy. At 8m above street level, the canopy covers a unique 90m clear opening that lets natural light and air flood down to the ticket hall and platforms. A bespoke work of art will be printed on the glass panels of the 120m-long canopy that will create a picture of the sky.

Bond Street — a modern classical approach Station architect John McAslan + Partners Engineer design WSP Main contractor Costain Skanska JV Urban realm designs John McAslan + Partners/WPS/Publica Oversite development partners Great Portland Estates (Hanover Square), Grosvenor Estates (Davies Street)

Station structure Mined Excavated material tonnage 302,000t Depth below ground 28m

Above: Work has moved to the ticket halls at Bond Street Below: The roof soffit at Dean Street, Tottenham Court Road

Tottenham Court Road — striking contrasts Architect Hawkins\Brown Engineer design Arup/Atkins Main contractor Laing O’Rourke Urban realm designs Atkins/ Gillespies/AHMM Oversite development partner Derwent London (One Oxford Street) Station structure Mined Depth below ground 24m

Over the past six months Tottenham Court Road station, in the heart of the West End, has transformed into what looks like a nearly complete station.

At the east end, in the ticket hall that will be integrated with the existing London Underground station, the escalator connecting the two is in place.

Below ground, the platforms are complete and the architectural cladding is being installed — at the western end on Dean Street, the ticket hall is being clad in black reconstituted stone. The large drum light fittings, designed to reflect the nearby theatres of Soho, are in place and work on the escalator, the longest on the Elizabeth line at 47m, will begin in February. l Onsite at Crossrail’s West End spectacular, p30 CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | FEBRUARY 2017 | 27

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Farringdon — celebrating

At Liverpool craftsmanship Street, nestled at the entrance Architect Aedas Engineer design Aecom to the City of Main contractor Bam/Ferrovial/Kier JV London, Urban realm designs Burns + Nice/URS Crossrail has made the most Oversite development partner Cardinal Lysander (Cardinal House) of what little Station structure Mined space is Excavated material 332,000t available to build a massive Depth below ground 25m piece of infrastructure. When complete, the station at the centre

of the Elizabeth line will become a link between Thameslink, London Underground and the Elizabeth line services??.

The longest platforms on the route, stretched to reach ticket halls built either side of the historic Smithfield meat market, are complete and being clad in the architectural wall panels.

The roof of the western ticket hall, designed with diamond-shaped segments to reflect the

heritage of the local Hatton Garden diamond district, has just been completed.

The soffit of the eastern ticket hall has been constructed, and resonates with the nearby Barbican Centre, while the rest of the building structure is undergoing fit-out with the mechanical and electrical components. In late 2017 installation of a bespoke incline lift, designed to avoid the complex underground structures of the area, will begin.

Below: More than 600m of twin platform tunnels have been completed at Whitechapel

The diamond-shaped roof at Farringdon is now complete

Liverpool Street — maximising space and light Architect Wilkinson Eyre Engineer design Mott MacDonald Main contractor Laing O’Rourke Urban realm designs Burns + Nice/URS Oversite development partner Aviva Investors Station structure Mined Excavated material 567,000t Depth below ground 34m At Liverpool Street, nestled at the entrance to the City of London, Crossrail has made the most of what little space is available to build a massive piece of infrastructure.

The platforms that connect the two ticket halls, stretching from Moorgate in the west to Broadgate in the east, are now complete.

At the eastern end, the huge Moorgate shaft is rapidly rising from 30m below ground to street level as the concrete floors are poured and back-of-house mechanical rooms constructed.

At the western end, the structure of the Broadgate ticket hall is nearing completion.

The architectural roof, the pre-cast segments of which resemble the pinstripes of workers in the City, has been installed.

Meanwhile, the archaeology programme that unearthed more than 3,000 skeletons from Roman times and the 17th Century burial ground is complete and the findings will be put on display together for the first time in a new exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands in February.

The track and other railway systems will be installed later in the year and the fit-out of the platform tunnels and ticket halls will continue until 2018.

Whitechapel — connecting communities Architect BDP Engineer design Arcadis Main contractor BBMV JV Urban realm designs BDP/Arcadis Station structure Mined Excavated material 451,000t Depth below ground 30m Whitechapel station is a complex interchange being built between the Hammersmith & City and District lines and London Overground.

30m below ground, more than 600m of twin platform tunnels and more than 350m of cross passages for the new station have been constructed.

Access to all services will be from a spacious new ticket hall sitting on a bridge above the Victorian railway infrastructure, with entry via the refurbished original entrance on Whitechapel High Street. The new station concourse structure is largely

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complete, with glazing and cladding underway and the first panels arriving early this year.

To improve connectivity to the surrounding area a new second entrance is provided at the northern end of the station. Demolition works of the old Whitechapel Tube station interior structure is complete with some of the original elements donated to the Epping Ongar heritage railway.

Canary Wharf — a vibrant urban destination Client Canary Wharf Contractors Ltd Station concept architect Tony Meadows Associates Executive architect Adamson Associates Oversite development architect Foster + Partners Engineer and lead consultant Arup Urban realm design Gillespies Station structure Box Depth below ground 28m

Construction of the new Canary Wharf station was completed in September 2015 and the track and other railway systems are currently being installed.

The 256m-long station box is surrounded by the water of West India Quay dock, and sits directly below five levels of mixed-use development that is now open to the public.

The station ticket hall is accessed via eight long-rise escalators from the promenade level entrances at either end of the building. On top of the station, a 310m-long timber glulam roof, sheltering a striking roof-top garden, lets in light and rain for natural irrigation.

Translucent air-filled pillows allow direct views in and out of the building and sustainably sourced timber beams provide a warm, natural counterpoint to the glass and steel towers of Canary Wharf.

In May 2016 the new footbridge at Custom House opened — the first piece of Crossrail infrastructure brought into use for the public.

Woolwich — drawing on history Clients Crossrail, Berkeley Homes Architect Weston Williamson Engineer design Arup Main contractor (station fit-out) Balfour Beatty Urban realm designs Gillespies/Atkins Station structure Box Depth below ground 14m The structure of the new 27m-long box station at Woolwich, which is below a 3,750 housing and commercial development, is now finished.

Underground, the platforms have been installed and the track laid. Above ground, work is about to begin on the roof of the new ticket hall, and in early 2017, large 17m structural beams that span the space will be installed.

The brickwork of the station exterior, which is designed to respect the heritage of the nearby Grade I and II listed buildings, will begin in the spring.

Custom House — linking it all together Top: The platforms have been installed at Woolwich Below: Abbey Wood station resembles a manta ray

Architect Allies & Morrison Engineer design Atkins Main contractor Laing O’Rourke Urban realm designs Ramboll Station structure Above ground

The pre-cast jigsaw-like structure of the new station at Custom House, which took a day over a year to assemble, was completed in 2015. In May 2016 the new footbridge opened — the first piece of Crossrail infrastructure brought into use for the public.

In the summer of 2016 new mayor of London Sadiq Khan visited the station to see the first section of completed track on the route, and throughout 2017 work will continue on the fit-out of the station with the mechanical and electrical components, and the enhancement of the urban realm, including a landscaped area with planting, cycle parking, wayfinding and improved lighting.

Abbey Wood — a catalyst for regeneration Client Crossrail, Network Rail Architect | Fereday Pollard Engineer design Tony Gee & Partners, WSP - Parsons Brinckerhoff Main contractor Balfour Beatty Rail Urban realm designs Urban Movement Station structure Above ground At Abbey Wood, a new station is being built to replace the former structure that was too small to accommodate both the existing Southeastern services as well as the two new Elizabeth line tracks.

From above, the station is shaped like a manta ray, its zinc-surfaced “wings” extending into canopies sheltering impressively-scaled staircases either side. Lifts emerge as architectural features flanking the station forecourt.

The new station building makes great use of wood: framed inside with laminated larch beams, and clad on its flanks with a sustainable and durable hardwood, above a warm brick base.

Glazed canopies run back along the platforms.

The two platforms for Southeastern services are now complete, providing passengers with new information screens, seating and canopies. The new station building is quickly taking shape, with the elegant new timber roof in place.

Work to fit out the station and construct the Elizabeth line platforms will continue and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2017. CM CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | FEBRUARY 2017 | 29

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GRAND CENTRAL The £1bn Tottenham Court Road station is arguably the most ambitious on the Elizabeth line, boasting two separate ticket halls, a vast new area of urban realm, the longest escalator and the only curved platform. Stephen Cousins reports.

IT IS ALMOST CHRISTMAS and Oxford Street is a maelstrom of shoppers and sightseers, pretty lights and petrol fumes. But 24m below the hustle and bustle, deep inside the cavernous tunnels of Crossrail, the only sound is the drone of ventilation machines, punctuated by the clatter of metal and the buzzing of hand drills.

I’m walking through one of the passenger tunnels being constructed as part of the £1bn Crossrail station at

Tottenham Court Road and it is difficult to communicate the awesome scale of the space. It feels like I’m standing inside a whale — the cylindrical sprayed concrete walls are covered by a rib-like framework of metal cladding rails and, at 10m across, the tunnel is almost double the diameter of those on the London Underground.

Tottenham Court Road is arguably the most complex and challenging of the 10 new Crossrail stations in central London

being constructed for the £14.8bn Elizabeth line, running between Abbey Wood and Paddington and due to begin operation by the end of 2018.

The project involves construction of a new station entrance and ticket hall to the west, on Dean Street, and an integrated ticket hall to the east, below St Giles Circus, at the intersection of Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road (under the famous Centre Point tower).

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The integrated ticket hall will be six times larger than the original London Underground station on the site, designed to absorb the estimated 200,000 people expected to use the station each day, 50% more than today. The station will boast the longest and only curved platform tunnel on Crossrail — measuring 230m, the length of three football pitches — and the longest escalator.

“Londoners do not know what is going to hit them, the scale of this project is enormous. I think most people are expecting another Jubilee line, but this is immense,” says Harbinder Singh Birdi, partner at lead architect Hawkins\ Brown, which designed the station in collaboration with Crossrail, London Underground and consulting engineers Arup, Atkins and Halcrow.

Above: Tottenham Court Road will have the longest escalator on the line Right: The cylindrical sprayed concrete walls of the passenger tunnels are covered in a rib-like framework

Fit-out project As heavy civil construction work draws to a close, main contractor Laing O’Rourke and its small army of subcontractors are getting their teeth into a major fit-out project involving a wealth of cladding systems, electrical and communications cabling, control systems, signalling and other equipment.

Phil Jones, construction manager at Crossrail, told CM: “Three quarters of the overall project is complete, but the final 25% is the most condensed period of the programme. The challenges have really changed risk-wise, with a greater emphasis on health & safety — there’s a lot more work at height and manual handling — and managing multiple trades in the same area.”

The project was a lot less advanced back in the summer of 2015, when tunnelling and portal and shaft excavation work drew to a close and heavy civil construction began.

Behind the hoardings at the western ticket hall, at Dean Street, operatives would have been staring into a gaping six-storey hole, criss-crossed with a network of hydraulic mega-props, required to prevent the surrounding streets from caving in.

Brian Keane, site manager for the western ticket hall, told CM: “The biggest civil engineering challenge was to prevent the diaphragm walls from collapsing.

The giant 1.2m-wide hydraulic props had to be installed at different angles throughout the space and monitored for any movement or loss of pressure.”

Tottenham Court Road station: above and below ground services

This end of the development was built from the bottom of the excavation up, mainly to facilitate access for the tunnelling work. The station box under St Giles Circus, meanwhile, was constructed top-down, to reduce the requirement for back-propping needed to reduce ground movement and the potential for damage to adjacent buildings.

“Londoners do not know what is going to hit them. I think most people are expecting another Jubilee line, but this is immense” Harbinder Singh Birdi, Hawkins/Brown

The concrete frame for the former was built one level at a time: first, the columns and floor slab above were cast, then the lattice of mega props below were “burnt out” (cut into sections), hoisted out onto a truck and removed from site. It took a team of up to six men around three weeks to clear each level of props.

Almost all concrete structures on the project were built in-situ, despite Laing O’Rourke’s preference for the use of prefabrication, explains Julian Robinson, head of architecture for Crossrail: “The original engineering design was for in-situ and couldn’t be changed by the time Laing got involved. The way forward, >

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> on schemes like Crossrail 2 and other projects, is to have the contractor on board early and get buy-in from engineers and the client to prefabricate everything, even the primary structure.”

One key challenge, he adds, is working out how to build huge structures in constrained sites very quickly and efficiently.

Construction of the tunnels began shortly after the giant boring machines were removed. A layer of concrete was poured across the base of the cylindrical hole to create the track bed and adjacent platforms. A mid-section of the concourse tunnels will permit the future intersection of the £32bn Crossrail 2 project, the first tenders for which are due shortly.

Concealed vents Each platform is designed to handle 200m-long trains that are able to carry up to 1,500 passengers in nine interconnected carriages. They incorporate concealed vents (the height of a 6ft 4in journalist!) that channel searing hot air produced by trains along to the ends of platforms and up to the surface through huge ventilation shafts. The shafts will be fitted with 9.5m-diameter fans and run through new buildings constructed at ground level above each ticket hall.

Full-height glass safety screens, similar to those installed on the Jubilee line, will separate the tracks from the platforms. The platform doors will be fitted trackside from a special train truck, in an innovative automated process intended to simplify logistics. This “tilt and fix” procedure is being rehearsed at a mock-up Crossrail platform created at a facility in Milton Keynes.

Above: Building on a constrained site has been a challenge

Keane explains: “When Laing O’Rourke’s contract ends, our delivery ‘mole holes’ from the surface will be closed up, so any large deliveries for follow-on contractors, including the platform doors, must come in via rail.”

The passenger tunnels and concourse will feature a limited palette of naturally self-finished materials, used throughout Crossrail, designed to be durable and require little maintenance. These include precast concrete, glass, anodised aluminium, stainless steel, and sleek white glass fibre reinforced cement (GFRC) cladding.

The 40mm-thick GFRC, a mixture of solid and perforated units intended to improve acoustic absorption, is just a third of the thickness of the precast concrete alternative and will flow across the tunnel walls and the complex curved junctions between passageways.

Stepping up escalator installation Once the stone cladding on the escalator wall is in position, work will begin on the escalator itself, the longest on Crossrail, with a 47m incline.

The escalator will be delivered by lorry in 11 separate truss sections, each one craned to the top of the incline, then lowered down using a winch. The bottom-up installation will begin with the tension carriage (the bottom truss section), followed by the incline sections and the main drive section.

An incline hoist will deliver sections weighing less than three tonnes, including the controller inverters, the balustrade, step chain, steps and floor plates.

Marijan Harris, section engineer for the western ticket hall, told CM: “Lifting in the escalators is a big challenge as the sections are so heavy. We are currently working to get the floating concrete slabs in the ticket hall cast so work on the escalators can begin.”

“We don’t have a huge storage area, so the emphasis is on just-in-time deliveries and installing straight away” Phil Jones, Crossrail The fluid geometry was made possible by the sprayed-concrete tunnel construction technique — super-heated material machine-sprayed onto surfaces at around 350mph — there are no sharp angles and the cladding fits tight to tunnel walls on a secondary subframe.

Computer modelling the cladding was a time-consuming exercise, says Robinson: “With tunnelled structures you often have to deal with non-standard geometries, where the tunnel shifts position to avoid underground obstacles. That creates a number of unique conditions that require unique panel shapes.”

As installation progresses, some sections of wall are already covered with cladding, while other areas are marked with spray paint where the concrete had to be stripped back to enable cladding rails to fit snugly.

As passengers travel up escalators from the underground concourse to the ticket halls, they will transition from the homogenised Crossrail aesthetic into spaces bespoke-designed to respond to the local context of each ticket hall.

The eastern ticket hall is light and bright, taking cues from the Centre Point building directly above and other 1960s architecture in the locality.

The neighbourhood’s heavily gridded street plan is reflected in an exposed structural concrete soffit with its large downstand beams.

Striking twisted glass-and-steel canopy entrances form part of an area of urban realm, designed to create a new pedestrian connection to Covent Garden, where the Underground station is close to capacity and unable to expand due to its Grade II-listed status.

A tradition for integrated art in Tottenham Court Road Underground is continued inside the ticket hall with colourful and monochrome artworks by French artist Daniel Buren. In addition, the concrete soffit forming the ceiling of one of the escalator boxes will be covered by an applied gold-leaf artwork by Turner Prize-winner Richard Wright.

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The opposite end of the station will feature mostly black and gold finishes, intended to evoke the vibrant night time culture of Soho. Internal walls will be covered by 1.9 tonne slabs of black reconstituted stone cladding.

The process of installing the around 90 slabs on the wall next to the escalator, each measuring 3m high by 2.2m wide, is an ongoing challenge as operatives work from the steep escalator incline.

Concrete soffit Lifting chains from a crane positioned on the floor above feed down through holes drilled through the concrete soffit and deliver panels to operatives working from an incline hoist positioned on the escalator slab. The panels are manually fixed to steel wind posts attached to the concrete walls.

Keane comments: “We had to get engineer buy-in to the idea that, by drilling through the 750mm-thick slabs, we were not weakening structural integrity.”

The same cladding will be used on the facades of a new six-storey residential block, due to be constructed above the ticket hall when the contract to build the station is completed. This block will enclose the ventilation extract tower and feature projecting window

reveals and pleated “gold” anodised aluminium spandrel panels.

The ground floor of the western ticket hall is a condensed intersection of different trades — cladding installers work alongside steel fixers, carpenters and operatives striking out the concrete decking.

The high level of congestion requires a strong emphasis on health & safety culture and regular meetings with subcontractors to plan the phasing and re-phasing of work packages.

“A key part of that is how we manage materials coming on site,” says Crossrail’s Phil Jones. “We don’t have a huge storage area, so the emphasis is on just-in-time deliveries and installing straight away.

Cabling is a significant task in its own right, particularly around preventing damage.

A tiny nick in a 100m length of cable can cause serious communication problems.

All these things add to the complexity of interfaces we have to manage.”

Although the project is engineer led, engineer, consultant and contractor teams are co-located in the same office, to improve collaboration and design coordination. This set up will be key when it comes to the overarching task of connecting the station with nine other new stations, and the wider network of 43 external stations and all their related systems, due to integrate into Crossrail.

Above: The project is three-quarters complete Left: Cladding at the Dean Street entrance

As Crossrail’s Julian Robinson puts it: “There’s a lot of wire and a lot of pipe, a lot of kit that has to be in the right place, connected to the right things, at the right time.”

It’s a Herculean job, made all the more impressive by the fact it will all be carried out unbeknownst to the legions of shoppers, tourists and workers on the streets above. CM

Architect Hawkins\Brown Engineer design Arup/Atkins Main contractor Laing O’Rourke Urban realm designs Atkins/ Gillespies/AHMM Oversite development partner Derwent London (One Oxford Street)

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A JOURNEY INTO THE FUTURE

Crossrail’s legacy will not just be the miles of train track and platforms across London and the south east. As James Kenny discovers, the project has become a hotbed of innovation that will serve construction for years to come.

PROJECTS SUCH AS CROSSRAIL WILL leave a

deep-rooted legacy across the industry.

Europe’s most ambitious engineering project has already had a major impact on working practices in areas such as apprenticeships and procurement.

Another key area where it will have a long-lasting impact is the use of technology on site.

Drones, BIM and tablets, among other technologies, have become more common on site the last few years, but Crossrail has been a pioneer, pushing the boundaries and adapting already existing

gadgets for construction use, while also working on new tech that will benefit the whole built environment sector for years.

A main driver in this innovation and one of the key stations on the Elizabeth line is Liverpool Street, one of London’s busiest transport hubs.

The £300m station project has become a hotbed of innovation as new technology has been used and tested on site to keep construction on time and to budget.

Ravi Kugananthan, project engineer, tunnels and platforms for main contractor Laing O’Rourke, explains how everyday

gadgets and technology have been adapted for the project and how some of the solutions and ideas are now being adopted across the construction industry.

“There are two types of ways you can look at innovation: come up with something completely new or look at using existing technology and adapt what hasn’t been used in a construction environment before,” he says. “And that’s mostly what we’ve done at Liverpool Street. We used normal off-the-shelf technology which hasn’t been used from a construction point of view.”

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E

Above: Smart helmets have been developed with Soluis.

Top right, right: Pico projectors allow presentations on the go

All of the new ideas developed and tested at Liverpool Street have been made possible by Crossrail’s innovation programme, Innovate18, which it developed with London’s Imperial College.

The initiative involved Crossrail contacting various Tier 1 contractors in its supply chain and asking them to not only agree to share ideas with each other, but also pay £25,000 into an innovation fund. All the major contractors working on Crossrail, including Balfour Beatty, Kier, BAM, Laing O’Rourke and Skanska, agreed.

This created an open dialogue of ideas and a testing ground for new innovation, but by committing funds meant that an £800,000 pool was created that could be used to develop and test new concepts.

William Reddaway, innovation programme manager at Crossrail, says: “Traditionally the construction industry has been quite slow to pursue innovation or there have been barriers with companies keeping their own ideas in-house. With Innovate18 we had all the contractors agreeing to work and develop together and really collaborating on research and developing fresh ideas or improvements to existing ways of working. The programme transcended contract and other boundaries and encouraged the collective effort to succeed, and that, in turn, will help the whole construction industry.”

He adds: “This was about legacy and understanding what technologies or solutions can have a positive impact, not only on Crossrail, but the industry as a whole. The programme helped share information and supported a trial if an idea had potential and had never been used in a certain environment.”

Innovate18 has funded the trial of more than 63 ideas, ranging from drones for site surveys to new sensors to keep people and machinery separate.

Although the programme has been wound down on Crossrail, it has been broadened into an industry-wide model called I3P. This is the new innovation forum for the infrastructure industry and it already has five client organisations signed up, including Crossrail, as well as 14 contractors.

The following are six innovations that have been trialled successfully at Liverpool Street station and could have widespread impact in the industry.

Smart helmets Among the more innovative concepts was an augmented reality (AR) smart helmet created by a collaboration between Crossrail and technology company Soluis.

Glasgow-based Soluis was awarded £35,000 from Innovate UK to develop software that would allow AR to be utilised on site. Over the past year the company has been working with Crossrail to build and test an app on the Liverpool Street site that allows construction site staff to access and upload BIM data via the smart helmet’s visor display.

Called “In-site”, the app is able to transfer information about buildings or

“This was about legacy and understanding what technologies or solutions can have a positive impact, not only on Crossrail, but the industry as a whole.”

William Reddaway, Crossrail

structures from the cloud to the helmet and then overlay it as augmented reality on workers’ visor screens. Testing the app and the smart helmet on the site has shown how such technology could be used in the future as the hardware becomes more common and cost effective.

GoPro cameras These sturdy action cameras originally came out in 2004 and have been mostly used to shoot sports. However, at Liverpool Street, GoPros were attached to a number of workers on site to record their daily tasks and the resulting footage was studied to improve ways of working.

“We wanted to see the perspective of different workers during the day — steel fixers, electricians, for example, and see what they see. So this footage was recorded and then analysed and we processed it and gave it back as a presentation on site,” says O’Rourke’s Ravi Kugananthan.

“Simple things came out of it, such as a worker wasn’t wearing long sleeves doing their job. This has now become mandatory on all sites. It’s been hugely helpful in the area of health and safety.”

Pico projectors Pico, or pocket, projectors are easy to transport, which means people can project their data and video anywhere without being tied to power supply. Onsite presentations and updates could be done during the project off the cuff without having to bring workers to offices.

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Onsite Crossrail

“We were the first to use these projectors but now you are seeing them across other sites in the industry.”

Ravi Kugananthan, Laing O’Rourke > a construction environment but that’s what we’ve used it for. From our offices in Liverpool street down to the tunnels it’s a good 15-20 minutes to the site and then back again. If you calculate that by a number of people, it does clock up a lot of hours wasted just moving people around and to do presentations and briefings.

“With these projectors, there’s no power requirement, it’s very portable and produces a very large screen on a surface, so we were able to update workers, show operatives tasks, or dangers or changes on site. The amount of time and costs this has saved on the project has been huge.

We were the first to use these projectors but now you are seeing them across other sites in the industry.”

Drones Drones have also become a vital part of the work at the new station, particularly in the Moorgate shaft area.

As Kugananthan explains: “In Moorgate we had a number of continual inspections to do at height. The work involved inspecting the 45-50m shafts that serve the station. We also had to check services attached to the side of the shafts.”

The work had been done manually, with engineers using mobile elevating work platforms to video and photograph the shafts and tunnels. This was timeconsuming and a potential safety issue.

“So we bought an off-the-shelf drone — the DJI Inspire 1 — and workers were trained to use it. We ended up using them not only for inspections but also organising logistics, providing a record of progress and general safety inspections,” adds Kugananthan.

Above: Drones were used extensively for inspections in the tunnels

Noise-cancelling speakers This idea originated from noise-cancelling headphones and the desire to try to make the work environment as quiet and as disruption free as possible. The technology is based on “inverting” sound waves to cancel out other noises as they travel through the air to the ear.

Liverpool Street Crossrail station will open in December 2018 when services begin through central London. Trains will terminate at Paddington in the west and Abbey Wood in the east.

Laing O’Rourke was awarded the main £300m construction contract for the project to build two new entrances and ticket halls and platforms, creating new interchanges with the Northern, Central, Metropolitan, Circle and

The idea is still very much in the development stage and has now been transferred over to I3P where work is continuing.

UtterBerry sensors UtterBerry, an intelligent wireless sensor system using the world’s smallest wireless sensors, has also been developed and tested on the station site.

Developed originally by Heba Bevan, a PhD student at the Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction at the University of Cambridge, it consists of miniature, self-powered sensors placed around the site, that can carry out calculations to derive tunnel displacement in real-time without human intervention.

No access is required to keep the system running in potentially unsafe areas.

The sensors have allowed contractors to know the location of people in a tunnel in the event of an emergency and is poised to be adapted across the industry on further tunnelling projects. CM

Hammersmith & City Lines, as well as connections to Stansted airport and National Rail services.

The construction of the new Liverpool Street Crossrail Station is divided up into four main sites: Moorgate, Liverpool Street, Finsbury Circus Shaft, and Blomfield Street Shaft.

A number of physical constraints below ground at Liverpool Street made

the station one of the trickiest to thread into the urban fabric, including a maze of sewers, existing tube lines and the Post Office Railway. In addition, layers of the city’s history had to be revealed before much of the work could get underway, which in total uncovered nearly 4,000 skeletons from the Bedlam burial site as well as thousands of artefacts dating back to Roman times.

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Construction Professional

‘Taking the BIM plunge paid off’

JOHN HOLCROFT

Anthony Harte, director from architectural consultant James & Ward, explains how getting on board with BIM has driven efficiencies, increased productivity and generated more profits.

OUR ENTRANCE into

the world of BIM came in 2008. It was initially driven by a private sector client, Walmart’s UK subsidiary Asda, who specified we convert existing 2D AutoCAD drawings into 3D using Autodesk’s Revit. As a small practice we were able to act quickly, gaining approval from all directors within days along with authorisation to invest the £16,000 necessary on licenses, kit and training.

Adopting BIM is a huge financial commitment, especially for small practices.

Although it’s been made slightly more affordable with the introduction of software subscription packages, it’s still a large chunk of money to come off the bottom line. We decided the investment should be part of our longer-term business strategy. We therefore don’t add a premium when pitching for new contracts

to offset the costs, which is something a lot of companies large and small tend to do to recoup some of the investment.

Having taken the plunge, we invested a good deal of time getting to grips with BIM, initially developing the knowledge of myself and one other team member.

Taking this approach has enabled our business to grow organically, increasing our output and expanding our customer base. We are 70% more efficient than before, make more profit and get a better return on all our projects. Our client base is also more diverse as a result.

One of the clearest advantages of using BIM (aside from the financial benefits on

“One of the clearest advantages of using BIM was that it enabled us to identify inefficiencies within our own practice.”

contracted projects) was that it enabled us to identify inefficiencies within our own practice. For example, we developed a standardised approach for all our filing structures and project management procedures, ensuring company standards and branding were consistent, both internally and for external clients. This in turn was fundamental in us achieving ISO 9001, which again has helped us to win more business.

As a firm we boast a 100% success rate in delivering projects on time and within budget, which is something else we attribute to BIM use.

Although BIM is much more widespread than it was in 2008, it’s a minefield for firms attempting to get on board today.

There’s an abundance of resources, websites, training events and conferences available. The challenge is knowing which ones provide value for money and credibility. Based on our experience, it is important to have a clear understanding of the benefits BIM can bring to your business, and identifying the additional services and opportunities it can open up for business growth will help inform which resources will be of most benefit.

When we started using BIM there was no government mandate, no rules on certification, validation and verification and nowhere near the amount of hot air that surrounds the subject today. As such we had to develop our own procedures and policies.

We began by focusing on the front-end visual capabilities of BIM, such as 3D drawings, rendering and walk-throughs, as we’d never been able to offer these “value added” services to clients. However, over time we realised that these are really only the by-products of the real benefits of BIM. Focusing on the data available within the software, the collaborative opportunities, and the capability for continued development of information is where BIM really comes into its own.

As our expertise and knowledge

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“In a recent care home development we were able to identify a number of potential building errors, which would have cost £300,000.” increased we could look at multiple factors on behalf of contractors — such as availability of materials, construction methods, transportation issues, site limitations or restrictions and timing of waste generation — and identify the most cost-effective and sustainable options for them. This meant we were able to offer a really competitive service to our clients, including reducing the design phase and producing tender drawings at speed.

Contractor knowledge and understanding of BIM still varies quite extensively. There is a common belief that BIM software will flag up potential problems regardless. However, we have found that the manual checking remains an essential part of projects until, at least, BIM use is universal and communication glitches between different software systems are fully resolved.

As an example, through manually checking drawings we were able to highlight a structural issue with the positioning of the columns on a retail build for Asda that had opted to skip the steelwork design phase and went straight to the fabrication stage. A software glitch could have resulted in a potentially costly mistake on the project that would not have been picked up if we hadn’t double checked the drawings manually.

Another example involves a contractor on one of our projects that chose to skip a site survey, instead stipulating the use of an architectural glazing schedule, because “BIM is accurate”. We had built in sufficient

tolerances into the details (as a result of close liaison with the curtain walling subcontractor) and, aside from a single section having to be remanufactured, due to the steelwork sagging, our specifications were spot on.

In addition to saving our clients more than £4m in development costs through BIM, in a recent care home development we were able to identify a number of potential building errors, which would have cost the client an additional £330,000 to make good.

Organically growing our expertise has enabled us to capitalise on the wider benefits, focusing on the long-term operational savings that can be achieved through better specification and management of assets throughout a facility. This, in turn, has had a big impact on repeat business and winning new work.

As a small practice we have had to develop our skills over time, adapting our focus to meet a shifting client base.

2016 has been a pivotal year for BIM with the introduction of the central government mandate for Level 2. This is an encouraging move, but it has also introduced a level of complexity across the industry which confuses the majority.

The explosion of standards must be incredibly complex for those beginning their BIM journey, and keeping up with the changes is a task in itself. Just make sure that you see the benefits within your own business, and if you’re having to charge more just for carrying out the same services in BIM ask yourself why you’ve not found the benefits internally. After all, there will be somebody waiting to value engineer that additional cost out without realising the benefits it brings.

For more information about James & Ward and its projects follow @jamesWARDltd or visit: www.jamesward.org.uk

BIM was used on James & Ward’s Asda scheme in Mosborough, Sheffield

ALAMY

The importance of making yourself clear

Say what you mean, and mean what you say.

The above paraphrased quote from Alice in Wonderland is often appropriate when drafting contracts. Despite best intentions, it is not always clear what particular words or phrases in a contract mean. The same set of words can be given quite different meaning by opposing parties, with significant sums turning on which interpretation is correct. Much time and cost can be spent arguing over the meaning of certain phrases.

This was the position in Transocean Drilling UK Ltd v Providence Resources Plc, in which the wording used in a limitation/exclusion clause became the focus of legal scrutiny. The case concerned a dispute over delay in relation to an offshore drilling rig. The drilling was suspended and, as a result, various claims were made.

The key issue for this article was the meaning of the exclusion clause in the contract. The owner of the drilling rig was found to be in breach of contract and liable for the wasted costs — these being the cost of support vessels that had been supplied. At trial the case went against the owner of the rig, so the owner appealed. It said the exclusion clause in its contract meant it was not liable for the sums claimed, contrary to what the trial judge had said.

The phrase in question on appeal was “loss of use”. The issue was whether the wasted costs of the support

vessels (arising from the delayed drilling) fell within the phrase “loss of use”.

The Court of Appeal considered the various legal authorities and held that when construing the meaning of a word or phrase, “…the starting point in construing [the clause] must be the language of the clause itself”.

“The principle of freedom of contract, which is still fundamental to our commercial law, requires the court to respect and give effect to the parties’ agreement.”

The Court of Appeal found that the phrase in question did indeed bear the meaning the rig owner contended when approached from the above standpoint. As a result, the rig owner was not liable for the losses claimed.

This decision is a clear signal that the courts will uphold clearly worded drafting in relation to exclusion clauses, where they are negotiated between parties of equal bargaining power.

The Court of Appeal’s approach was to follow where possible the language used by the parties themselves to express their intention, and not adopt what might be regarded as artificial legal arguments in an effort to interpret the clause one way or another. The parties were free to agree how risk should be allocated.

By Stuart Thwaites, a legal director in Wright Hassall’s construction and engineering team. stuart. thwaites@wrighthassall.co.uk tel: 01926 884690

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Construction Professional

Reintegrating structures and processes is within our grasp Colin Harding describes a new system that integrates design and construction teams and encourages collaborative procurement by creating a sole legal entity to take responsibility.

CONSTRUCTION MUST be the only strategic

global industry where the design of its products takes precedence over the practicalities and cost of their production, causing budgets to be habitually exceeded and repetition of good design derided. In all others, designers/ innovators are an essential, integral part of the overall production team — striving to improve designs and value for the customer, while improving efficiency and reducing costs for the manufacturer. UK construction’s increasingly fragmented, adversarial structures and processes mean that for the last few decades, we’ve been doing precisely the opposite.

At the current peak of the most sustained, most profitable property boom in modern decades, developers, property owners, virtual construction supervisors and designers have been declaring profits up to 20- 25%. Over the same period, the average net profit of the 20 largest UK contractors has fallen to

a break even 1.2%, while costs to clients have been rising at 2% a year above general inflation. Twice the numbers of management staff are employed in the two industries together than is economically justified. The overall construction industry is therefore grossly (and badly) overmanaged and consequently grossly inefficient and unproductive.

In short, the old fragmented, externally supervised system is bust and urgently needs replacing to get anywhere near the goals set out in Mark Farmer’s recent report, Modernise or Die. We’ve known since the Banwell Report in 1964 that the basic problem is fragmentation and the adversarialism it creates. Several previous well-meaning attempts over the last 25 years, aimed at integration and collaboration, have been fudged or obstructed by the wellconnected virtual construction factions that need fragmentation, regulation and

“A system that genuinely reintegrates the industry’s structures and processes has never been made available — until now.”

The IDCsr integrated team

Similar techniques

Project

Planning and Building Control

Funders Property and facilities Management

Investment & Funding Advisers

Tax and Accounting Advisers

Client Sponsor Project

Company Finance and Accounts

CDM Co-ordination

Engineering Design Bid Management

Architectural Design Design Management

Client Team Leader

Clients Progress Management

conflict to justify their involvement and protect their fees.

A system that genuinely reintegrates the industry’s structures and processes has never been made available, until now, through Integrated Design & Construction — Single Responsibility (IDCsr).

IDCsr is a totally integrated and collaborative procurement, design and construction management system between the client and IDC Constructor (IDCC) direct. The system evolved in the 1970/80s for my own company/client’s use and I codified it as the IDCsr Code of Practice with the help of a CIOB working group and staff, published in 2015.

IDCsr is effectively a merger between the real and virtual construction industries where the IDCC employs or engages all the design and construction personnel necessary to deliver the complete project — welding them into a completely integrated and thus collaborative team.

It is therefore the perfect vehicle for the use of BIM (or any other digital design/ management systems) without additional contracts or protocols.

IDCPM Project Management Construction Management

Project Coordination Systems Management

Health and Safety Management

Commercial and Estimating Management Quality Management

Environmental Performance

Specialist Design and Construction

IDCr Project Insurance Trade Suppliers

Integrated Design & Construction — Single Responsibility A Code of Practice is available from Wiley Blackwell eu.wiley.com

The IDCsr design management and construction management techniques are very similar to those we have been using for decades — with two important exceptions: l IDCsr is driven by good process rather than adversarial contract terms. l Responsibility for the overall design well as the construction rests solely with the IDCC legal entity that signs the agreement directly with the client — ie single responsibility. In doing so, the IDCC acts as a manufacturer selling a finished, custom designed, warranted product, rather than as a “contractor” building to someone else’s design and budget. Hence the use of the term “constructors” within

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Construction Professional

IDCsr rather than “contractors”.

The IDCsr agreement is therefore a product sales agreement direct with the client, rather than a service contract supervised by third parties. The complete model sale agreement terms and conditions are set out in the Code of Practice. The IDCsr system is intended to make it as simple and satisfactory to buy a building as it is to purchase any other high-value, warranted manufactured product.

The IDC project manager (IDCPM) drives the process. The role includes being the principal contact with the client, driving and supervising the IDCC’s bidding, design and construction process, in other words, leading the whole project. In exchange for total authority over design and construction, the IDCPM, on behalf of the IDCC, must accept full responsibility for the entire project’s success, supported by the bid manager, design manager, construction manager and commercial manager and their teams.

The project will be covered by the IDCsr project insurance, providing 12-year latent defects warranty, third-party liability and project-specific professional indemnity cover for all practitioners within the IDCC, with a full waiver of subrogation rights.

Overall leadership of the client team comes from the client project sponsor who will chair the client team, supported by the client team manager (CTM), also named personally in the agreement.

“IDCsr offers great opportunities for all and threatens no one, because its use is optional.”

IDCsr’s three-stage process STAGE 1 INCEPTION “I think we need a building”

Develop project definition and client requirements

Develop business case

Decide on competition or negotiation

Invitation to bid

Identify client need

STAGE 2 SELECTION

Negotiated process

Competitive bids

Client commitment to IDC Constructor by signing agreement

Bid evaluation

STAGE 3 DELIVERY Bid and brief transfer

Construction project delivery

Commissioning

Design delivery process

Confirming the team

Final Review — clarification of design, cost & programme

Client commitment to full design and final package by signing Part 2 of the agreement

Completion and handover

Occupation and aftercare

IDCsr’s three-stage process Stage 1: Inception Inception only involves the client team (unless the project is to be negotiated).

A “statement of need” for the project is prepared and then a business case developed and its feasibility tested.

From that the client’s project definition and project budget are prepared.

Funding needs to be agreed in principle as well as preparations to set up a Project Bank Account (PBA), through which all payments to the IDCC’s team will be made.

This is a significant change to traditional procurement processes.

The IDCsr business case is concerned solely with the impact of the proposed construction project on the client’s on-going business. Clients’ IDCsr business cases and budgets are prepared before any design concepts

are developed, giving clients direct control over design-led cost inflation.

The budget is the defining part of the IDCsr client brief — from which the IDC Constructors will formulate their design and construction concept bids for the client’s consideration.

Stage 2: Selection The IDCsr competitive bid process starts with the detailed transfer of the project definition, budget and client requirements to the (maximum three) bidding IDCC team leaders. The IDCCs each prepare their own concept design and build programme to the budget, for the presentation of the bid. The client team then evaluates the bids and selects the preferred IDCC, agreeing any outstanding issues, and signs the IDCsr sale agreement.

Stage 3: Delivery The first part of Stage 3 is the full detailed, collaborative design process.

Once complete, client and IDC team leaders together review the complete final designs and package and agree any outstanding matters. The client then signs the second part of the sale agreement, confirming acceptance of the full design and construction package, so authorising the IDCC to proceed with construction.

Construction management procedures follow current good practice. A project-specific IDCsr Quality Management Plan is essential, monitored by the IDCPM, IDCC quality manager and the client team manager working together. Payment provisions based on pre-agreed stage payments included within the terms of the

agreement will be paid direct from the PBA within three days of confirmation that the stage has been reached. There are no retentions.

Because the process is entirely collaborative, dispute escalation and resolution should firstly be between the IDCPM and CTM. If that proves to be unsuccessful, the next step should be mediation. The mediator should be appointed in advance and named in the sale agreement.

IDCsr offers great opportunities for all and threatens no one, because its use is optional. Everyone in both client and IDCsr teams is there because they want to integrate and collaborate, not because one party insisted they should use the system, or forced unreasonable contract terms upon them.

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Construction Professional

Out of site should not mean out of mind As the industry increasingly takes up premanufacture as a route to more efficient construction, increased risks concerning payment and supply need to be addressed, says Assad Maqbool.

ONE OF MAIN THEMES in last year’s Farmer

Review, Modernise or Die, was the need to encourage premanufactured construction.

It is not new that offsite manufacture, modern methods of construction, or prefabrication might be considered to be more efficient, but the impact of the Farmer Review is that premanufacture is likely to become an increasing theme, particularly if the recommendations in the Review to encourage premanufacture are implemented. We are already seeing the Review’s influence in large-scale public procurements with an increase in clients’ demand for premanufactured solutions.

The advantages of premanufacture include health and safety benefits and reduced time on site.

Reducing time on site is both an aim in itself and a cost advantage because construction teams are able to move onto the next project sooner and the reduce site overheads.

The creation of the more sterile environment of a factory within which conditions can be more easily controlled ought to mean that numbers of injuries might resemble those in the manufacturing industry. According to the Health & Safety Executive’s headline figures, each year in the construction sector 4% of workers suffer from an illness they believe to be work-related and 3% of workers sustain work-related injuries. In the manufacturing

One of the reasons for non-delivery might be insolvency of the supplier of the and this is a key risk to deal with contractually.

Premanufacture brings issues such as offsite health and safety management and risks should suppliers become insolvent

sector, those figures are 3% and 2% respectively. That kind of reduction would be hugely beneficial to the construction sector workforce and might positively impact on insurance costs and recruitment.

Increasing premanufactured approaches does raise an issue, however, in examining health and safety when the project is increasingly being carried out away from site. The CDM Regulations are clearly drafted to deal with onsite issues and the definition of “construction work” explicitly includes onsite assembly and disassembly of prefabricated elements, but does not explicitly include any prefabrication.

We are likely to see increasing contractual rights for the employer to inspect manufacturing plants, but the focus of these rights will more likely be to ensure that work is progressing (particularly in light of payment).

Payment terms Payment is generally a key issue with increased premanufacture. In the current environment, there is quite often a requirement for contractors and employers to pay in advance of the manufacture to “secure a slot” in the production line, but this may increasingly be challenged on the basis that suppliers in the construction industry are generally paid for work carried out and costs committed, rather than in advance.

To the extent that there is advance payment, there may be increased requirements for advance payment bonds to mitigate against prefabricated elements not being delivered. One of the reasons for non-delivery might be insolvency of the supplier of the premanufactured element and this is a key risk to deal with contractually.

We are used to seeing clauses in construction and supply contracts stating that if elements have been manufactured or purchased and stored offsite, these should be segregated from other materials and insured for the benefit of the ultimate client.

These clauses are designed to avoid a situation, on insolvency of a supplier (or a catastrophic fire in a warehouse, for example), where it is impossible to distinguish the property of a certain client. If a client’s property is impossible to distinguish from another’s, it is likely that these will be treated as part of the general assets of an insolvent supplier, and so will fall into the general insolvency pot to be distributed among creditors.

In a fire, if the insured goods are not distinguished, it would be unclear whether they are in fact insured.

This raises a key issue about when “property passes”. Particularly when a supplier becomes insolvent, it will be important to show that ownership has transferred away from that supplier before the insolvency. Often in construction contracts, there will be drafting to effect that ownership will pass from a contractor to the employer upon delivery to site and payment. This is to ensure that if there is contractor insolvency, the goods will not be taken away by the administrators. Without such drafting, there is a clear risk that goods will fall into the general insolvency pot.

Premanufacture highlights and exacerbates the general issue with such drafting: there may be agreement between the employer and contractor that property will pass between them in that way, but if there is no similar agreement at Tier 2 level, the manufacturer may retain ownership no matter what the contractor and employer have agreed between them.

This is likely to increase the need for vesting certificates whereby suppliers agree directly with the ultimate client the point at which the client takes ownership.

As with prefab generally, none of these risks are new, but they should be in the forefront of minds when contracts for projects that include premaunufactured solutions are agreed.

Assad Maqbool is a partner at Trowers & Hamlins specialising in projects and construction

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Continuing Professional Development Aircrete blocks • Production and use of aircrete blocks • The product’s thermal properties • Its place in modern methods of construction

Time to view an established building product in a new light Cliff Fudge, technical director of H+H, describes how aircrete blocks can play a key role in providing sustainable solutions and help to deliver the housing stock desperately needed. typically used in the foundations and lower storeys of three-storey buildings, piers under high vertical loads and in multi-storey buildings.

For most contractors, however, the most common use of aircrete blocks will be in the construction of brick-and-block structures — primarily houses. Aircrete is generally used for the inner leaf of a cavity wall, although it is also well suited to solid wall designs where it is likely to be faced with an insulating render.

For site workers the most immediate appeal of aircrete is its ease of use. The cellular structure reduces the weight of standard blocks: aircrete weighs around a third of an equivalent dense aggregate block — typically a 100mm block weighs around 7kg. The fact that the blocks can be cut with a standard handsaw ensures that workers can cope with fine detailing on site.

block it should be safe to assume that its characteristics, potential uses and product development are widely understood.

However, aircrete remains one of the most misunderstood and undervalued products on the building site, so it is worth being reminded of why this grey block has become such a staple.

The defining characteristic of aircrete is the air voids formed inside the structure so that the masonry blocks are not dense but instead are punctuated with pockets of air throughout — decreasing the weight and increasing thermal insulation of the block.

This structure is produced in a manufacturing process. The constituent elements of aircrete are: pulverised fuel

CPD

WHEN A PRODUCT is as familiar as an aircrete

ash — a by-product of the energy generation industry — water, cement, lime and a very small amount of aluminium powder. These products are mixed into slurry and poured into moulds.

It is the chemical reaction caused by the aluminium and lime combination that creates thousands of air bubbles — a process similar to yeast used to make dough rise.

Curing takes place in an autoclave where the aircrete is heated under pressure. The resultant blocks are provided in a range of sizes and with a range of strengths — aircrete blocks such as High Strength Grade and Super Strength Grade Celcon Blocks give compressive strengths of 7.3N/mm2 and 8.7N/mm2 respectively and are

Energy efficiency The building designer, however, is likely to place a higher value on the performance characteristics and thermal efficiency is of particular importance. The most recent change to Building Regulations Approved Document L in 2013 focused attention on the thermal efficiency of the building fabric, requiring energy efficiency targets to be achieved by the structure rather than by the use of renewable energy generation technology such as solar panels or heat pumps.

It is entirely possible to meet the exacting U-value requirements of Part L with a standard cavity wall construction using aircrete blocks on the inner wall, high-performance insulation in the cavity and a brick facing. However, even better performance can be achieved by using the

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Continuing Professional Development Aircrete blocks

“The rapid setting of thin-joint mortar allows for continuous laying until storey height is reached” thin-joint mortar method — a process that has been widely used in Europe for decades, but which has been relatively slow to make ground in the UK market.

H+H’s thin-joint system combines the use of large-format, accurately dimensioned aircrete blocks and quick-setting thin layer mortar to create a highly productive and cost-effective building system. It can be used for solid or cavity walls in all types of buildings, including houses, apartments, commercial buildings, schools or offices.

Thin-joint refers to the thickness of the mortar joint. Mortar joints are usually 10mm, but when using the thin-joint system this is reduced to 2mm. Instead of using traditional sand/cement mortar, H+H’s thin-joint system uses Celfix mortar which was developed specifically for use with the H+H aircrete blocks. Celfix is cement-based and supplied as a dry premixed powder. The main advantages of using this method of building are speed and increased air tightness.

Speed of build is dramatically increased as the Celfix mortar sets extremely fast.

Traditionally, block layers have only been able to build six courses per day, limited by the need to allow the relatively thick mortar joints to reach full strength.

However, the rapid setting of thin-joint mortar allows for continuous laying until storey height is reached.

Thin-joint enables the inner and outer leaves of a cavity wall to be constructed independently of each other, allowing for a weathertight shell to be constructed much faster and enabling the follow-on trades to get started in the interior while the outer leaf is still under construction.

The other significant advantage of the thin-joint system relates to the technical performance of the structure, specifically in relation to considerations of air permeability and thermal bridging.

Air permeability is a significant factor in the construction of homes to current Building Regulations, but is particularly

significant when it comes to highperformance structures such as Passivhaus designs.

Building Regulations stipulate an airtightness of a maximum of 10m3/hr.m2 for houses. Aircrete blockwork typically results in values of 5-6m3/hr.m2. However, blockwork laid using thin-joint can achieve an airtightness level of 4m3/hr.m2 without the need for a parge coat — a level of airtightness that reaches the performance requirements for Passivhaus construction.

Air tightness is not the only performance characteristic that needs examination, however. The close focus on the thermal efficiency of wall structures in Part L requires every element of the wall to perform to optimal levels and achieving this requires an understanding of the impact of thermal bridging.

Thermal bridge effect Every junction in a building has a linear thermal bridge effect — a “psi” value. This is the rate of heat flow per degree per unit length of the thermal bridge that is not accounted for in the U-value of the plain elements. This is taken into account in SAP calculations, but if the designer decides not to calculate the thermal bridges then a default Y-value is used. This effectively adds a significant penalty in the design — if the default value is used it suggests that 50% of the heat loss through the fabric is via junction losses.

Using the Y-value under the regulations, as opposed to an assessed psi value, will more than likely result in the building design not achieving the thermal performance levels in a cost-effective way.

For smaller builders that perhaps have limited in-house capabilities and utilise the services of external architects and SAP assessors it is vitally important that they are aware of the potential pitfalls relating to thermal bridging.

Fortunately, there is a shortcut.

For aircrete, there are independently published psi values for around 20 common junctions that can be found on the Constructive Details website or, for more common forms of aircrete construction, on the accredited construction section of the LABC website.

Far left: H+H’s thin-joint system was used at Hockley’s development in Lincolnshire. Top: Thin-joint can reduce mortar joints to 2mm.

Above: Aircrete blocks being laid with Celfix mortar

These junctions have been determined for full fill and partial fill cavity walls as well as a solid wall construction. The benefit of using these in the design will result in achievable, cost-effective solutions, with external cavity wall U-values in the range of 0.22 to 0.18W/ m2K. In practice, this will mean 100150mm cavities.

Every time Building Regulations are revised, or new targets set for carbon reduction and energy efficiency in new build, questions are raised about whether familiar building materials can meet the higher performance standards. And on each occasion, aircrete has demonstrated its ability to meet or exceed the most exacting standards.

The current issue of most concern is the ability of the UK construction industry to meet ambitious government targets for housebuilding. Consequently there is much discussion around the ability of UK manufacturers to meet product demand and the capacity of the workforce to build the numbers of houses required. > CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | FEBRUARY 2017 | 45

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Continuing Professional Development Aircrete blocks

Aircrete put through its paces in Lincs Requiring speed without sacrificing quality, Hockley Homes specified the thin-joint system from H+H for the construction of nine homes in the Lincolnshire Wolds.

As well as choosing it for its sustainability credentials, Hockley realised that the versatility and ease of installation with aircrete would make production of the two separate blocks of terraced housing and two semi-detached homes much more straightforward within the time limit set for the project.

H+H technicians visited the site to provide tailored training to the Hockley block layers. When the Hockley contractors were confident with aircrete, technicians assessed the work on site to ensure that building standards were of the highest quality.

The benefits of aircrete go much further than just sustainability, as Andrew Hockley, managing director of Hockley Homes explains: “One of the reasons that we specified the H+H thin-joint system and other H+H products for these homes was due to the energy efficiency that can be achieved in an aircrete home, something that we could not get near if we used a timber frame construction, for example.”

The inherent light weight of aircrete adds a significant contribution to the thermal mass of a building — aircrete products absorb heat in the day before slowly releasing the heat at cooler times. This solution reduces the requirement for additional cooling and heating, bolstering the energy efficiency within all of the properties.

Speeding up the build process was vital too and this is another reason why Hockley favours the thin-joint system.

“When up and running, the system is very quick indeed, which keeps everything on schedule, and makes any unforeseen issues easier to handle,” he says.

A number of innovations mean that the thin-joint system can produce high-quality results rapidly. By using Celfix mortar, which was developed and optimised for use with the thin-joint system, mortar usage is reduced by 80%, as 2mm of Celfix has the performance of 10mm of regular mortar.

Celfix sets incredibly quickly, reaching full strength within 24 hours, speeding up the Lincolnshire project even further.

> Aircrete manufacturers, with a trackrecord of adapting to meet changing market demand, have comprehensive answers to both these issues. As discussed earlier, H+H aircrete blocks are made primarily of pulverised fuel ash (PFA). This is a by-product of the coal-fired energy generation industry and it is no secret that, in a drive to reduce carbon emissions, the number of coal-fired power stations is in steady decline. Add to this the fact that recent warm winters have reduced energy demand and it is clear that the quantity of fresh fuel ash available for the aircrete — and concrete — industry is at a historically low level.

Aircrete manufacturers can address this challenge in two ways. It is possible to manufacture aircrete using sand in place of PFA. However, a significant advantage of the PFA-based product is the environmental benefit of using what is effectively a waste product.

Long-term supply For this reason, rather than switching to an alternative constituent material, H+H has secured a long-term supply of stockpiled PFA. When coal-fired power stations provided the majority of energy generation in the UK, the fuel ash residue was simply buried in vast pits as there were not sufficient manufacturers using it as a constituent. There is sufficient quantity of this stockpiled ash to support our manufacturing output for the foreseeable future.

When it comes to the challenge of building capacity aircrete also has answers.

The thin-joint process discussed above greatly increases the speed of build on site — adding capacity to the building process.

However, the sector also embraces the need to innovate and H+H is poised to roll out a method of construction that combines the speed and efficiency of offsite manufacturing with the performance advantages of traditional masonry build.

We first introduced our Vertical Elements into the UK market in 2007.

Storey-high blocks of aircrete, these are simply craned into place and fixed with thin-joint mortar, providing structural walls in hours rather than days and using minimal site labour. The potential for these Elements was proved by the construction of the Barratt Green House at the Building Research Establishment in 2007 and by further prototype buildings trialled by various house builders.

However, the recession of 2008 reduced the appetite for innovation and Vertical Elements, while the basis for standard building design across Europe, did not gain a strong foothold in the UK market.

In 2017 H+H is gearing up to reintroduce the concept of storey-high aircrete elements as part of a systembuild package which is set to propel the material in the form of Celcon Elements into the offsite manufacturing arena for the volume housebuilding sector.

We believe that homeowners prefer a property built of masonry — not only for its performance attributes but also for its proven longevity. Providing we continue to invest in product development, we are confident that aircrete will remain a product of first choice for house building in the UK. CM To find out more about H+H and its range of aircrete products and solutions, go to www.hhcelcon.co.uk

The CIOB has a dedicated CPD portal on the Construction Manager website, featuring CPD modules from the magazine, as well as study topics from a wide range of industry experts.

To complete the questionnaire below, and access the free CPD content, go to: www.constructionmanagermagazine.com/cpd

CPD test paper: Aircrete blocks 1. Aircrete blocks are made from water, cement, lime, pulverised fuel ash and: l Zinc powder l Iron powder l Aluminium powder l Silicon powder

4. Building Regulations stipulate that airtightness for houses should be: l 4m3/hr.m2 l 5-6m3/hr.m2 l 10m3/hr.m2 l 0.5m3/hr.m2

2. A 100mm aircrete block typically weighs: l 7kg l 5kg l 10kg l 2kg

5. Celfix mortar reaches full strength within: l 6 hours l 12 hours l 24 hours l 36 hours

3. Using the thin-joint system, mortar joint thickness can be reduced to: l 10mm l 20mm l 12mm l 2mm

46 | FEBRUARY 2017 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

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Contact Contact THE CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF BUILDING MEMBERS’ NEWSLETTER ISSUE 149 FEBRUARY 2017

IN THIS ISSUE

49-51 ON THE RADAR

All the latest news and developments from the CIOB at HQ and in your area

51 GLOBAL STUDENT CHALLENGE Last year’s winners report on their experience as entries open for 2017 challenge

51 DIARY DATES

Key events by region for the month ahead

53 RESEARCH

The lastest recipients of the Bowen Jenkins Legacy Fund

54 MEMBER BENEFITS

Take advantage of exclusive member offers

55 ONE TO WATCH

Readie Construction’s Matt Rowe

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16/01/2017 14:16

ON THE RADAR

Contact | Feb 17

members

One CIOB: opportunities and benefits continue

>

The One CIOB initiative – designed to deliver a more accessible member experience – continues to develop. At a local level new services and support are being introduced including rolling out a new Local Hub structure to help deliver these changes.

The CIOB’s 29 new UK and Ireland Local Hubs have started work and are already developing their plans to bring members new CPD events as well as reach out to employers and education contacts in your area. You can now find all your Local Hub staff and committee member contacts at www.ciob.org/nearyou International Hubs are now calling for applications Do you work internationally and want to support your fellow members overseas? This month, we’re calling for applications for International Local Hub committee roles. It’s a great way to develop your planning and leadership skills and support members in their careers.

You’ll find all the information you need to apply at www.ciob.org/oneciob. Or request an application pack by emailing localhubrecruitment@ciob.org.uk Also in the pipeline…

We’re upgrading our systems to bring you a new members’ portal and more relevant e-newsletters.

Soon you’ll be able to receive information from the Hubs most relevant to you. So if you work in London, but live in Brighton, for example, you can pick and choose which events you get to see in your inbox each month.

And if you can’t attend Hub events, we’ll soon be rolling out webinars so you can join or catch up at a time that suits you.

Great member involvement and improved member experience is central to the One CIOB initiative

people

CIOB STALWARTS RECOGNISED IN NEW YEAR HONOURS LIST Chris Blythe has been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours list for services to the ‘Construction Industry and the Government’.

For more than 20 years Chris has been involved in

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vocational education and training, together with business development.

He has been Chief Executive at the CIOB since January 2000.

Paul Nash CIOB President said: “I am delighted Chris

has received this award in recognition of the contribution that CIOB has made both to the construction industry and the wider public interest under his leadership.”

In addition Mike Foy

FCIOB, a CIOB Trustee, who serves on a variety of CIOB boards and committees has also been awarded an OBE for services to ‘education’.

Paul Nash also said he was thrilled Mike received recognition of

his contribution to the education sector. “By providing the best type of environment for teachers and students Mike has created an important legacy that benefits communities and society.”

49

16/01/2017 14:16

ON THE RADAR

Contact | Feb 17

novus

in brief

Novus bright futures student challenge expands for 2017

> CIOB FEEDING TO INQUIRY OF BREXIT IMPACT

>

The annual Novus Bright Futures Student Challenge is expanding its reach in 2017 – giving more construction students the opportunity to make an impact.

Since 2014 the event has been run as two local heats (London & Chelmsford) and a final. However on Wednesday 8 March there will be a total of eight local heats taking place simultaneously with the winners of each heat invited to battle it out for the title of Novus Bright Futures Champions 2017 in the final, to be held two weeks later.

The eight heats will be held in London, Chelmsford, Cambridge, Brighton, Maidstone, Oxford, Reading and Southampton and will comprise three elements to highlight students’ individual strengths in addition to the all-important team work that the industry requires. No preparation is required however teams are required to register their attendance with their local member services and events coordinator.

Many students advantage of the networking opportunities available on the night and they are also given the chance to get noticed during the challenge by industry professionals who can often help with careers advice or support based upon their own experiences.

The Novus Bright Futures Student Challenge offers fun and career opportunities

The Bright Futures challenge is free to enter and is guaranteed to be an exciting experience for built environment students at all levels.

Previous participants of local Novus

student events such as this have gone on to secure work placements and graduate roles by taking part and two have even gone on to become a the UK & Ireland Novus Chair and a CIOB Trustee.

events

CIOB News

MEMBERS LEARN HOW TO GET THEIR OWN WAY IN NEGOTIATING

50

CIOB members earned their ‘black belt’ in negotiating at the end of last year in a joint CIOB seminar delivered by Tom Flatau from Teamworking International (TWI).

Flatau is an international

pp50-52NRMW.indd 50

expert in the field of leadership development with over 20 years of experience working worldwide with organisations on leadership, negotiation and culture issues. Through TWI he delivers training and

coaching in ‘leadership mindset’ for corporate executives and senior managers Held in Southampton, the event was well attended and Flatau captivated the audience, with his interactive

exercises, enabling group discussion on a number of subjects and networking.

Those who attended walked away with new skills to help maintain the balance of power favour when negotiating.

The CIOB will be one of a number of organisations giving oral evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Excellence in the Built Environment’s latest inquiry into the impact of Brexit on future skills needs in the construction industry and the built environment professions.

The inquiry has been established by the APPGEBE in the wake of the Brexit vote last June. One of the key issues in this historic decision was the free movement of people.

This subject is of special significance given the reliance of construction on workers from the EU both at a trades and professional level; and at a time when construction is already facing a skills shortage.

The CIOB’s response to the inquiry has been based on its own report on migration in construction, published in March 2015: Perspectives: An Analysis of Migration in the Construction Sector.

The APPGEBE was formed in 2010.

The group’s primary remit is to present a holistic and overarching view from all sectors involved in the built environment.

See the CIOB report on the CIOB website

17/01/2017 10:05

HAVE WE GOT YOUR CONTACT DETAILS CORRECT?

membership

• If you have moved or changed any of your details recently, don’t forget to tell

us. You can update your details online – simply log in to “members area” of the website www.ciob.org. Or email us at memenquiry@ciob.org.uk or call our membership customer services team on +44 (0) 1344 630706 for further help.

If you would rather post your details send them to: The Chartered Institute of Building, 1 Arlington Square, Downshire Way, Bracknell RG12 1WA, UK

events

Could your social media get you sued?

Members learn the pitfalls of Facebook

>

Construction professionals in Northern Ireland gathered to find out in December if social media could in fact land then in legal hot water when the CIOB and the Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists (CIAT) held a joint CPD event at the offices of Belfast law firm Cleaver Fulton Rankin.

Leading employment lawyer Aisling Byrne delivered the key-note presentation on the topic of ‘The Legal Implications of Social Media Misuse in Construction’.

With social media fast becoming recognised as a main-stream communication platform, the event attracted attendees including company directors, construction managers, bid writers, marketing executives, architectural technologists and lecturers. Topics addressed included the growing need for companies to have an up-to-date social media policy, the legalities of who actually owns LinkedIn accounts, when and when not to tweet, the pitfalls of Facebook as well as the advantages and marketing opportunities from a properly managed social media strategy.

Gerard Graham, chair of CIOB in Ireland’s Northern Centre commented: “This event was really useful as it highlighted to attendees the importance of properly addressing the use of social media in the

The legal implications of social media and its potential misuse was the subject of a recent CIOB event

workplace. Many companies have partly embraced it, though few have fully embraced it. In particular there was advice on how businesses can be protected from social media misuse which was valuable to receive.”

David Comiskey, CIAT Region 15 Committee Member and CPD Officer commented: “Hosting a joint event with another institute has certainly proven to be a success. It was great to see so many CIAT members in attendance and get the opportunity to avail of free CPD whilst networking with fellow professionals.”

NEW MEMBERS AND FELLOWS Congratulations to the following Members who were elected to Fellowship on the 8th of December 2016 Paul Andrews, Richard Barber, Paul Beeks, Kyle Bowles, Jonathan Campbell, Stuart Carmichael, David Challenger, Dragos Dobreanu, Andrew Dudley, Gary Evans, Ray Ferguson, Michael Finan, Julian Floyd, Gerard Graham, John Hayes, John Hodgins, David Jameson, Michael Keogh, Matthew Lee, Arran Linton-Smith, William Lloyd, Neil Luce, Tak Fai Liu, John Mannion, Ian McCausland, Seamus McCloskey, Grant McIntosh, Ronald McKinnon, Robert Millar, Robert Mitchell, Rudi Moore, Rhys Morgan, Richard Morgan, Anthony Mulholland, Russell Murphy, Robin Norman, Lee Reynolds, Peter Roberts, George Smith, Gary Smy, Wai Hon, Daniel Sum, Desmond Thomas, Alan Walsh, Ho Yin Wan, Wei Dong Wang, Cornelius Ward, Kevin Watson, Shona Watson, Roger Wells

Keith Ewart, Paul Gardener, Michael Hammond, Russell Haynes, Peter Holme, Andrew Hornby, Heather Jones, Richard Jordan, Alan Leigh, Robert Millar, Eddie Oliver, Heath Powell, Mufutau Salako, Ronald Sutherland, Neill Tickle and Dennis Wilson.

New Members: David Abbott, Kofi Adusei, Lee Allan, Julia Allen, Tony Ashenden, Gordon BuckleySheldon, David Clark, Ashley Cooper, Andrew Cromwell, Kiranjeet Dhillon, Mick Doherty, Andrew Drummond, Mohamed Elaida, Joseph Elder, Ryan Gifford, Roland Harkness, Justin Ives, Christopher Keeton, Mark Kilcran, Ruvinde Kooragamage, Amanda Lester, Andrew Lewis, Neil Loxton, Craig MacWilliam, Adam Marley, Peter Meniru, Richard Miles, Sarfraz Mughal, Mark Mumford, Mark O’Callaghan, Keith On 12 December 18 Oldridge, Paul O’Loughlin, newly appointed Fellows, Benjamin Rogers, Barry 37 Members and 1 New Rowlands, Rhodri Thomas Chartered Environmentalist and Nicholas Vann. and their guests attended a Recognition New Chartered of Achievement Environmentalist Awards ceremony at Alan Leigh FCIOB CEnv. the Clothworkers’ Hall in London. Also in New Chartered Building attendance to receive their Company companies certificates Spetisbury Construction were representatives Ltd from one new Chartered Justin Ives MCIOB, Martyn Building Company and Openshaw, Roy Cake and two Chartered Building Richard Barker Consultancies.

New Chartered Building CIOB Immediate Past Consultancies President Alan Crane CBE, Contractors Marketing FCIOB and CIOB Chief Services Ltd Executive Chris Blythe Alan Workman FCIOB, officiated at the David Crick and ceremony and presented Matthew Grant certificates to: East Midlands Building New Fellows: Consultancy George Clarke, Miles Heather Jones FCIOB and Emsley, Andrew Evans, Richard Burgin ICIOB

influence

BUILDFORCE GATHERS MOMENTUM WITH OFFICIAL LAUNCH

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In support of BuildForce, CIOB is promoting to armed service leavers accessible routes into a professional qualification.

Speaking at the event were Damian Hinds MP, Minister for Employment; Mark Farmer, author of the ‘Modernise or Die’

review of the UK construction labour market; Chris Sexton, technical director, Crossrail; Major General Richard Semple CBE, director information, wBritish Army.

Follow Buildforce on Twitter at @buildforce

18 newly appointed Fellows, 37 Members and 1 New Chartered Environmentalist at a Recognition of Achievement Awards ceremony at the Clothworkers’ Hall in London on 12 December pictured with CIOB Immediate Past President Alan Crane CBE, FCIOB and CIOB Chief Executive Chris Blythe.

CIOB News

Buildforce had its formal launch at the end of January held in the Fusiliers Museum at the Tower of London. Buildforce is the CITBfunded initiative promoted by the CIOB to encourage military veterans to transfer their skills to construction management.

51

17/01/2017 10:05

ON THE RADAR

EAST OF ENGLAND

Contact | Feb 17

DIARY DATES

JCT vs NEC 21 February, ARU, Chelmsford Contact: coh@ciob. org.uk CDM: one year on 22 February, ISG, Ipswich Contact: coh@ciob. org.uk

IRELAND global student challenge

Global Student Challenge 2017 opens for entries

Site Visit to Windsor House in Belfast 16 March, 3.30pm, Belfast, Contact: kmenagh@ciob. org.uk

LONDON

Responding to the Modern Slavery Act 2015 15 February, 5.30pm, Union Jack Club, SE1 8UJ Contact: bgrange@ciob. org.uk Bright Futures Student Challenge 8 March, 5.30pm, venue tbc Contact: bgrange@ciob. org.uk

MIDLANDS

Glasgow Caledonian University 2016 winning team

>

CIOB News

The CIOB Global Student Challenge (GSC) is now open for entries. This unique competition sees student teams manage their own virtual construction company, testing business skills to the limit.

They compete for a place in the final in Hong Kong winning mentoring from industry leaders. The challenge is open to students based anywhere in the world on a built environment Bachelor’s degree level course.

52

To give you a taste of the competition the 2016 winners – Glasgow Caledonian University’s team Cali Construction, formed of Duncan McAslan, Sam Belkaid, Richard Boyle and Peter McElroy, relive their experience.

“The whole Challenge was inspiring.

Learning about company and financial management at a level beyond any of our experiences; realising the importance of teamwork and leadership; coping with competition and pressure and networking with senior executives was a priceless experience. To win the Challenge was the biggest confidence boost we’ve ever had.

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“The advice to succeed in the competition is to think like directors, act like directors, be directors. In Hong Kong the CIOB treated us like directors: we lived in the luxury of the Grand Hyatt Hotel, we were integrated into the Members Forum, we attended workshops and we met and had discussions with distinguished senior executives from the industry.

“Right from the beginning we wanted to implement a strategy of rampant growth.

Our strategy threw us into an early lead but coming in to the final as the leading team meant that we had a target on our backs. The danger was to become conservative and defend what we had. The chasing teams could and would take more risks. We decided that we would continue to push as far as possible. At this stage the company continued to grow, but the emerging threat was developing from our rivals. They hit the bidding hard and undercut the market cutting the legs from under us. Losing job after job saw us needing to use our reserves of capital that we had been holding to support the company. Pay offs of staff and a greatly reduced turnover from a lack of future work became a reality.

“Something drastic needed to be done.

Our bidding strategy was painstakingly revised and this allowed us to secure work and have no possibility of being undercut.

Suddenly things were changing, we were winning work again. The forward workload began to climb bringing with it our turnover.

Taking away forward workload from other companies as well as finishing four jobs amazingly increasing our score by 7%, cemented our place at the top of the table.

“The whole experience gifted us with a view of the pressures that directors can come under in their professional life. We saw how our decisions would have ripple effects throughout the company, for the better and for worse. The importance of having a strategy was clear but also having the sense and strength to revise the strategy was just as important. One of the most important lessons learned was that we had to work together. Whether it was pushing each other to achieve more, or challenging someone to defend their decisions and prove they were the best option. Teamwork, leadership and disciplined decision making. These lessons will stay with us.”

CDM Regulations Update 2 February, 6pm Nottingham Contact: gfloyd@ ciob.org.uk CDM Regulations Update 9 February, 6pm Milton Keynes Contact: jnewton@ciob. org.uk Defects in Buildings 28 February, 6pm Northampton Contact: jnewton@ciob. org.uk Dudley College IPI Methodology & BIM 7 March, 6pm, Dudley Contact: gfloyd@ ciob.org.uk

NORTH EAST

Behavioural Safety 9 February, 6pm, venue tbc Contact: dthorpe@ ciob.org.uk

SOUTH WEST

Renewable resources Date and venue tbc Contact cbenjamin@ciob. org.uk Student Challenge 8 March, Solent University, Contact: cbenjamin@ciob. org.uk

17/01/2017 10:05

MEMBERS

RESEARCH

FORUM RESEARCH PROJECTS SELECTED AFTER RECORD ENTRIES CIOB announces 2017 recipients of Bowen Jenkins Legacy Research Fund

>

It is the second year of the Bowen Jenkins Legacy Research Fund. The CIOB received a record of 86 applications from 15 countries (a significant increase from 58 applications from 12 counties for the BJL Research Fund in 2015). After a rigorous review by more than 15 appointed assessors from industry and academia, five of the best applications have been selected with a total grant over £46,000. The five research projects to receive funding are:

• ‘ Weather-wise: Working with the Weather to

•

•

•

•

Improve Building Construction’ by Dr Pablo Ballesteros-Pérez and Dr Shabnam Kabiri (University of Reading, UK) ‘ Work-ability: Exploring the Interaction between Bodily Pain and Mental Health’ by Dr Michelle Turner and Prof Helen Lingard (RMIT University, Australia) ‘LGBT in Construction: Exploring Experiences to Inform Inclusive Practices’by Dr Sarah Barnard and Prof Andrew Dainty (Loughborough University, UK) ‘ Augmented Vernacular: Embedding Digital Practices into Traditional Cob Construction Techniques’ by Dr Alejandro Veliz Reyes and Prof Pieter de Wilde (Plymouth University, UK) ‘ Monitoring Thermal Comfort of Elders in Nursing Homes by Using Wireless Sensor Networks and BIM’ by Dr Jingyu Yu (Hefei University of Technology, China) and Dr Mei-Yung Leung (City University of Hong Kong, China)

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The awarded research project is required to submit a final report of research outcomes. The research reports will be published as CPD learning materials for the benefit of members and the construction sector at large.

Mr Bowen Jenkins FCIOB was a supporter of the CIOB for most of his life serving at local and regional level right until his death. Follwing the death of Mr Jenkins and that of his wife Mary, the estate left a considerable legacy to the CIOB - the largest ever received by the Insitute.

The amount awarded for each project is limited to £2,000-£10,000 (or equivalent in local currency for international applicants) for a duration of 1-2 years. Research subjects must be related to one of the five research priorities recommended in the CIOB Innovation & Research Panel Strategy Document 2013: • Sustainability in the built environment – especially in terms of the challenges posed to construction organisations and clients as they seekto adjust their operation routines to meet sustainability targets.

• Corporate social responsibility as applied to construction firms.

• The quest for zero carbon, specifically in terms

of its contested meanings and skills and capabilites which are necessary to meet the current targets.

A particular focus is provided by the performance gap, defined in terms of the difference between design intent and the performance of the built facility.

• The application of digital technologies to the design, construction and operation of built facilities – coverage includes BIM but extends to include a range of technologies. Of specific interest are the innovative practices which are emergent rather than pre-planned.

• Employment practices in the construction sector – research in this area has slipped off the national research agenda in recent years and yet remains crucial to any quest for a more integrated industry. • Read more at www.ciob.org/scholarships/bowenjenkins-legacy-fund

“The research will be published as CPD for the benefit of members and the construction sector at large”

Research

Pushing the envelope The BJL research fund is one of the CIOB’s most important means of demonstrating its commitment to supporting research and knowledge development in the built environment.

Clockwise from top left: Dr Sarah Barnard; Professor Andrew Dainty; Dr Jingy Yu; Dr Shabnam Kabiri (left) and Dr Pablo Ballesteros Pérez (right); Prof Helen Lingard and Dr Michelle Turner

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MEMBER BENEFITS

create something amazing. today

FULL CORPORATE MEMBERSHIP OF CIOB brings with it many benefits, including exclusive access to discounts and special deals on products and services that could enhance your professional development, help your business or boost your earning power. Products and services currently on offer from our special partners are listed below...

opportunity

EX

CLU SIV MEM E OFF BER ER

ITN PRODUCTIONS | Feature in the next CIOB & ITN collaboration

The film Masterminds of Construction is brought to you by ITN Productions & CIOB and is the second programme in a series that brings greater understanding of the value of construction and explores the career opportunities available to young people in the industry.

View the film at http://www.ciob.org/masterminds-construction or to take part in the next programme in the series contact james.linden@itn.co.uk

car hire

CAR HIRE PEUGEOT | Exclusive member discounts on car hire

Peugeot is offering CIOB members exclusive discounts on cars and vans provided through Peugeot Contract Hire.

These agreements include Peugeot Assistance provided by the AA (including European cover), Vehicle Excise Duty for the duration of the contract and free metallic paint.

Visit our partnership website www.peugeotcontracthire.co.uk/ciob or call 0345 313 3811 to discuss your requirements.

finance

CIOB INSURANCE SERVICES | Premier BusinessCare

As the approved business broker to the CIOB, Premier BusinessCare specialises in finding CIOB members the best insurance covers available in the market at competitive prices. Working with a variety of UK insurers, we are able to give you a quick quotation to cover your profession and your business, including Professional Indemnity, Directors and Officers, Liability covers, and many other construction and commercial insurances. However large or small the job, it’s our job help you safeguard against the unexpected.

Call 0330 1026158 or visit www.ciobinsuranceservices.com for more details

software

CUBICOST BY GLODON | Free trial and training in cost software

How do you track cost variations, recover certainty and profit, as well as grow your business? Cubicost is Glodon’s Suite of Takeoff and Billing software (2D, 3D and BIM) used by global consultancies to regional contractors, our products drive project savings in time, resource and cost of tendering and thus, increase margins. Glodon are market leaders in Asia, a $500m group with 5000 employees, operating in 15 countries worldwide. Glodon is delighted to be working with CIOB. A FREE Trial and half-day training package is exclusively available to CIOB Members.

Contact us to book a demonstration. E: uk@glodon.com . W: www.cubicost.com T: 0203 808 4669

learning

ASTA POWERPROJECT BIM FROM ELECOSOFT | Making 4D planning easy

Are you able to link your project plan and 3D model together with ease for 4D planning in one application? Asta Powerproject BIM from Elecosoft makes this possible without being overcomplicated – making it ideal for tendering and progress monitoring.

Elecosoft currently provide project management software to over 90% of the top 100 construction UK companies and is offering a 14-day trial and online demo of Asta Powerproject BIM to CIOB members.

To find out more, call 01844 261700 or visit www.astapowerproject/bim

learning

IHS | Have you tried the new Construction Information Service?

The Construction Information Service (CIS) has been thoroughly refreshed and optimised to provide an indispensable source of key information that can help you realise significant time and cost savings The online tool delivers current regulations, construction standards and industry news covering building, engineering, design and construction processes. Data covers construction stages from design to completion for projects in the UK and Republic of Ireland. Users have access to technical data from 500+ publishers including full text copies of British Standards and CIOB documents. Using the CIS, you will be able to:

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The Chartered Institute of Building

ONETOWATCH Matt Stowe

Site manager Readie Construction

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Q Why did you choose a career in construction? What else would you have done?

I left school with the intention of going to sixth form to study history, sports and biology but after speaking with a family member who worked in construction in Hong Kong, I decided to complete the National Diploma in Construction Management and Civil Engineering. I wasn’t totally convinced about going to University but following six months travelling around various parts of the world, I decided to continue to pursue a career in construction management.

Q What’s your most embarrassing work moment?

I recently joined Readie Construction Ltd. In a new company, it is important to make a good impression. I attended our Christmas party in December and found out the following week I had been given the nickname, 'snake hips'. I don’t think I am going to live down those dance moves!

Q What’s the best and worst thing about working in construction management?

The best part is delivering a successful project, being part of an achieving team. The worst thing

find out more about events in your area go to www.ciob.org.uk/regions or > To look out for your electronic news and event updates from your CIOB branch or CIOB centre. To receive information from the CIOB visit www.ciob.org.uk and log on to the members’ area to input/update your details and preferences.

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can be the weather. When you’re pushing a programme but the weather prevents you from doing so, it is the most frustrating thing.

Q What are your career ambitions?

For the next stage of my career I am aiming to become a project manager, delivering successful projects around the country.

I also have a vision to set up my own business development company, within the construction industry. This is a long term goal which I am hoping I can achieve through gaining experience on various projects and learning from colleagues in the industry.

Q How do you spend your spare time?

I love to make the most of my time off. I like to get out into the countryside for walks with my wife and dog, with stops at a few country pubs on the way.

I also like to holiday abroad; I recently returned from a Safari in Tanzania and Zanzibar.

My wife is driven mad by me stopping to take photos of construction sites, whilst on holiday, and consistently commenting on the terrible health and safety procedures around the world.

•

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Contacts General Main CIOB telephone number +44 (0)1344 630700 Chief Executive Chris Blythe 01344 630701 Member Services Head of Member & Business Development 01344 630852 Change of Address 01344 630789/630731 Direct Debit Enquiries 01344 630831 Membership Certificates 01344 630720 Membership Enquiries/ Progression 01344 630706 Subs Enquiries (Members) 01344 630831 Training Partnerships 01344 630726 Certificate Ceremonies 01344 630785 SMTS Enquiries 01344 630742 Experienced Practitioner Assessed Programme (EPA) 01344 630887 Experienced Practitioner Assessed Report Route (EPAR) 01344 630887 Benevolent Fund 01344 630780 Professional Development 01344 630716 Library Enquiries 01344 630873/737 Head of Education 01344 630822 Adjudication and Dispute Resolution 01344 630732 Scholarship and Research 01344 630776 Chartered Building Company/ Consultancy Scheme Chartered Building Scheme Manager 01344 630746 Administrator 01344 630743

Publications Magazine subscriptions (non-members) 01344 630811 Construction Research and Innovation (CRI) 01344 630735 Construction Manager 020 7490 5636 Contact 07704 336835 Policy and External Relations Deputy Chief Executive 01344 630702 Press Office 01344 630766 Web Site Enquiries 01344 630738 CIOB International General Enquiries +44 (0) 1344 630791 CIOB Africa + 27 11 234 7877 CIOB Australasia +61 (2) 9816 4700 CIOB China East +86 21 2211 1556 CIOB China North +86 10 6528 1070 CIOB China West/South +86 23 3670 6360 CIOB Hong Kong +852 2543 6369 CIOB Malaysia +852 (603) 2284 5754 CIOB Middle East +971 (0) 4457 9107 CIOB Singapore +65 6334 4116 The views expressed in Contact are not necessarily those of the editor or the CIOB. The editor reserves the right to edit any article submitted for publishing.

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CIOB Members

Q Tell us about your career to date?

During my construction management degree at Leeds Metropolitan University I secured a placement with Interserve Construction with the major projects sector.

Following a year spent on site at RAF Brize Norton on an air tanker project, I was offered a position as a graduate engineer on completion of my degree. I worked on the St Helens BSF scheme for two years, during which I completed my NVQ Level 3 and LVQ Level 6 in construction management and civil engineering.

I was promoted to senior engineer and was awarded the Training Trust Award by Interserve Ltd, presented to me by Adrian Ringrose, the CEO of Interserve Ltd. I was later awarded the Interserve Innovation Award for creating a safe means of access into work areas.

At the age of 26 and after three years of hard work towards my CPD, I became a Member of the CIOB. This year, I felt it was time for a career move, so age 28 I am now chartered site manager for Readie Construction Ltd., managing a new £16m distribution centre for Pallet Force at Burton on Trent.

The Chartered Institute of Building is at the heart of a management career in construction.

Our focus is on those entering and already in a management career in construction. By delivering qualifications and certifications that meet the needs of a changing industry. We work with members, employers, academia and governments across the globe to drive forward the science, practice and importance of management in construction.

OUR VISION: Built environment professionals making a difference OUR MISSION: To contribute to a modern, progressive and responsible construction industry, meeting the economic, environmental and social challenges of a global society OUR VALUES: • Creating extraordinary people through professional learning and continuing professional development.

• Promoting the built environment as central to quality of life for everyone, everywhere.

• Achieving a sustainable future worldwide.

• Being socially responsible and advocating exemplary ethical practice, behaviour, integrity and transparency.

• Pursuing excellence in worldwide management practice and technological innovation rooted in evidence based research.

• To be the inclusive valued Institute of choice for built environment professionals.

We have over 47,000 members around the world and are considered to be the international voice of the building professional, representing an unequalled body of knowledge concerning the management of the total building process.

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Project of the month The University of East Anglia

BIM and cross-laminated timber helped deliver this university project virtually snag-free.

Grant Keys, director and general manager at main contractor R G Carter, spoke to CM about it.

Describe the project The UEA needed new on-campus, en-suite accommodation to support growth in student numbers and help maintain its identity as a campus university. Highquality design, sustainability, and ease of use were all key requirements to deliver an inspirational place to live and study.

What did the construction works entail?

The £14m scheme comprises two student residence buildings, plus a large landscaped courtyard, a launderette and a cafe. UEA’s carbon reduction plans involved a primary structure, including the cores, formed entirely from cross-laminated timber (CLT) to reduce embodied carbon. The building links to the university’s combined heat and power plant, and it features PV panels, high insulation levels and water-saving installations.

Vital statistics 250m sq m of solar panels, 512 prefabricated bathroom pods, 373 piles in foundations, 39% Norfolk supply chain partners, 3,898 cu m of CLT, 1.2 million nails, three work experience placements, 772 people working on site.

What was the biggest technical challenge?

The client thought the 62-week programme was almost unachievable and was constantly seeking reassurance that we could deliver in time. We had to appoint the M&E subcontractor, Briggs &

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Forrester, on day one to work with Austrian timber manufacturer KLH, and our senior design manager, to ensure the most important elements of the CLT frame were coordinated in BIM at a very early stage.

What were the key technical innovations and solutions?

BIM was crucial in getting the design delivered up front and a lot of work went into modelling the CLT risers to ensure they would contain the necessary M&E. We targeted Level 2 BIM and developed a comprehensive Asset Information Model, including all data needed by the client’s FM team to operate and maintain the building. We applied BSRIA’s Soft Landings process, from early design throughout construction, to accurately define and meet the client’s requirements in line with their strategy for managing the estate.

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Subscription team Tel: 01344 630831 subenquiry@ciob.org.uk Or write to them at: CIOB 2nd Floor 1 Arlington Square Downshire Way Bracknell RG12 1WA

Top: The project was delivered in 62 weeks virtually snag free Above: The primary structure was made entirely from CLT Below right: High-quality design and ease of use were key requirements

What will you take away to other projects?

The way we managed Soft Landings had real benefits, when we completed we did not experience the typical issue of people managing the building saying they had not received what they expected. It is a much easier method to meet and achieve the client and end user’s expectations.

In terms of lessons learnt, the procurement strategy could have been different, and appointing us, as main contractor, at an earlier stage in the design would have reduced pressure on the programme.

Champagne moment?

Seeing the CLT frame completed within 15 weeks was pretty breathtaking. I visited the site each week, at one point was had four huge cranes working together to simultaneously erect the frame and drop in the pods, progress was phenomenal. CM

Construction Manager Published for the Chartered Institute of Building by Atom Publishing 2nd Floor 3 Waterhouse Square 138 Holborn London EC1N 2SW Tel: +44 (0)20 7490 5595 Fax: +44 (0)20 7490 4957 firstname@atompublishing.co.uk

Construction Manager is published monthly

by Atom Publishing. The contents of this magazine are copyright. Reproduction in part or in full is forbidden without permission of the editor. The opinions expressed by writers of signed articles (even with pseudonyms) and letters appearing in the magazine are those of their respective authors, and neither the CIOB, Atom Publishing nor Construction Manager is responsible for these opinions or statements.

The editor will give careful consideration to material submitted – articles, photographs, drawings and so on – but does not undertake responsibility for damage or their safe return.

Printed by The Wyndeham Group. All rights in the magazine, including copyright, content and design, are owned by CIOB and/or Atom Publishing. ISSN 1360 3566

56 | FEBRUARY 2017 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

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