Construction Manager March 2019

CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | MARCH 2019 | WWW.CONSTRUCTIONMANAGERMAGAZINE.COM

MARCH 2019 For members of the CIOB

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CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | MARCH 2019 CONTENTS

03/19

Switchboard +44 (0)20 7490 5595 Editor Will Mann 020 3865 1032 will.m@atompublishing.co.uk Associate editor Neil Gerrard 020 3865 1031 neil@atompublishing.co.uk Production editor Sarah Cutforth Art editor Heather Rugeley Community editor Nicky Roger Redesign art director Mark Bergin Advertising manager Dave Smith 0203 865 1029 Key account manager Tom Peardon 0203 865 1030 Credit control Eva Rugeley Managing director Stephen Quirke

In this issue

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Circulation Net average 30,699 Audit period: July 2016 to June 2017 Subscriptions To subscribe or for enquiries, please contact: Subscription team Tel: 020 7199 0069 Or go online at: https://constructionmanager.isubscribe.co.uk Or write to us at the address below: Construction Manager Published for the Chartered Institute of Building by Atom Publishing, 3 Waterhouse Square, 138 Holborn, London EC1N 2SW Tel: +44 (0)20 7490 5595 firstname@atompublishing.co.uk Editorial advisory board Mark Beard FCIOB, Ann Bentley, Ian Eggers, Peter Caplehorn, Harvey Francis, Professor Jacqui Glass FCIOB, Paul Morrell, James Pellatt, Nick Raynsford, Richard Saxon, Andy von Bradsky, Phil Wade 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

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News 04 £4m bill for Carillion tower 06 Data: Regional starts 08 CCLG client buddy scheme 09 Hackitt: start change now 10 James Wimpenny interview 14 Women on the tools

Technical 22 Jehovah’s Witnesses HQ

Legal 44 Liquidated damages

26 30 34 36

Community 46 Conservation conference 50 NI awards evening 51 Diary dates

Opinion 18 Project bank accounts bill 20 Chris Blythe 21 Feedback: Readers’ views

Concrete Precast embraces BIM Brick-faced precast cladding Structural versatility Five concrete innovations

BIM & Digital 38 Round table: Manufacturers 43 ISO 19650 need-to-knows

Training & Recruitment 58 Mentoring at Mace

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News

06 08 09 10 14

DATA: REGIONAL STARTS CCLG CLIENT BUDDY SCHEME HACKITT: START CHANGE NOW JAMES WIMPENNY INTERVIEW WOMEN ON THE TOOLS

News in pictures

£4m bill for glazing repair on Carillion tower The cost of replacing failing glazing on the 47-storey Beetham Tower in Manchester (pictured) built by Carillion, is set to cost £4m, according to its owner.

The building features fully glazed external elevations made up of glass panels and its owner North West Ground Rents (NWGR) was last month ordered by a High Court judge to undertake permanent remedial works to the building. Problems had emerged with the structural sealant used to bond the glass panels to a unitised frame which was hung from the edge of the floor slabs of the building.

Now Malcolm Naish, chairman of NWGR’s parent company Ground Rents Income Fund, a real estate investment trust, has revealed that the cost of the works will be £4m excluding VAT. Naish said: “In order to comply with the judgment NWGR will be required to finance the remedial work and any litigation costs while seeking recovery from Carillion’s insurers and BUG [subcontractor].”

BIM use with MEWPs on the rise The use of digital MEWP objects is on the increase after a selection was uploaded onto the NBS (National Building Specification) BIM Library by the International Powered Access Federation. BIM has been used extensively on the £70.5m new HSBC headquarters in Sheffield (pictured), where architect Leonard Design has planned the building’s operational phase using the MEWP objects. To find out more, turn to page 4 of Powered Access magazine, bundled with this month’s issue of CM.

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CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | MARCH 2019 NEWS

Digital vision: Alex Lubbock of the Infrastructure & Projects Authority on platform DfMA See BIM + Digital, p38

For daily updates on the latest news, go to constructionmanagermagazine.com

World’s largest 3D-printed bridge built in Shanghai

News in quotes “It is a matter of some regret to me that it took seven months to be made public.”

Dame Judith Hackitt expressed her disappointment to MPs that the government’s delay in backing her review of fire safety and Building Regulations led to a “loss of momentum” for reform.

TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

The world’s largest concrete 3D-printed bridge has been built at the Wisdom Bay Industrial Park in Shanghai by a team from Tsinghua University’s school of architecture. The bridge is 26.3m long and 3.6m wide. The single-arched bridge was constructed from 176 concrete units that were printed using two robotic-arm 3D-printing systems.

The structure comprises 44 hollow units, while the deck is constructed from 68 pavement units.

Contractors picked for Old Oak and Euston HS2 stations A joint venture between Mace and Dragados has picked up the Euston HS2 terminus contract, beating bidders Costain/Skanska Construction UK and BAM Nuttall/Ferrovial Agroman. Meanwhile, a joint venture between Balfour Beatty, Vinci and Systra has won the Old Oak Common project, seeing off competition from Mace/Dragados, Bechtel, and BAM Nuttall/Ferrovial Agroman. Designs for the new station (pictured) were revealed last month.

Move over Banksy: Willmott Dixon art captures site life Willmott Dixon has used the skills of a professional illustrator to promote life in the construction industry. Artist Lynne Chapman shadowed senior building manager Joshua Heavens on the £40m Rochdale Riverside retail and leisure development. The sketches aim to capture the human stories and behaviours on site.

“I feel glad that it is over and I feel totally vindicated by the action we have taken.”

Redrow founder and chairman Steve Morgan reacted to winning substantial damages and an apology from Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers after a 2017 article falsely claimed he had bought houses meant for less-well-off buyers at a substantial discount. The damages will be donated to two special needs schools.

“A stench of complacency” Sarah Jones, Labour MP for Croydon Central, suggested there was complacency about replacing flammable cladding on high-rise buildings. She asked prime minister Theresa May why, 19 months on from the Grenfell Tower disaster, 85% of them still hadn’t undergone remedial works.

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£21.4m

The amount a Bouygues joint venture was paid for its role in the scrapped Garden Bridge project in London

Data

Best and worst-paying contractors revealed Build UK contractors have reduced the amount of time they take to pay invoices from an average of 45 days to 43 days. The news came as the contractors published their payment results for a second time in six months.

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Leeds

Manchester

Belfast

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The five fastest-paying contractors are: 1= Willmott Dixon: 32 days 1= Clugston: 32 days 3. Vinci: 33 days 4. Canary Wharf Contractors: 34 days 5. Mace: 34 days

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The five slowest-paying contractors are: 1. Engie: 61 days 2. Murphy Group: 57 days 3. John Sisk & Son: 53 days 4. Kier: 52 days 5. Galliford Try: 50 days

News in numbers

£275m 2025 The amount to which Interserve’s net debt will fall (from £650m) if shareholders back a “deleveraging plan” that involves issuing £480m of new equity to creditors.

The date by which major housing association and developer L&Q hopes to be using MMC in all newbuild homes, following the launch of its new offsite strategy.

Construction work hits record level in regions

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Birmingham

Regional construction work hit record levels in 2018 amid strong confidence among developers, according to the latest Deloitte Real Estate Crane Survey.

The map shows the number of new construction starts in each city in 2018.

5,000

The number of new homes volume housebuilder Weston Group hopes to manufacture offsite a year in its new £12m factory in Braintree, Essex.

3.5

The weight in tonnes of lithium-ion batteries required to run what is claimed to be the largest electric excavator ever built – a 26 tonne developed by Caterpillar and Pon Equipment.

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The number of months it is expected to take Morgan Sindall to build a new modular primary school in Derby that uses the Sunesis Mosaic model developed by Willmott Dixon and Scape.

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The number of tower cranes at the delayed Tottenham Hotspur stadium in London, being delivered by Mace, after the last one was finally removed at the end of January.

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NEWS MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

‘Buddy’ pilot scheme for inexperienced clients launched Heathrow Airport is one of the clients backing the scheme

WARREN ROHNER

CCLG AIMS TO RAISE CLIENTS’ AWARENESS OF BEST PRACTICE

A “buddy” scheme that aims to support small business owners unaware they are about to become construction clients, by pairing them with clients when needed, has launched.

The scheme, devised by the Construction Clients’ Leadership Group (CCLG) and funded

by BEIS, the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), HSE and CCLG members, aims to raise the perception of the industry as well as boosting productivity, reducing project costs and improve health and safety.

CCLG said it wanted to make business owners embarking on construction work aware that they have duties they have to understand and comply with, as set out in the CDM 2015 Regulations.

The body’s operations director Gren Tipper, who is overseeing the project, said it would aim to answer most questions new clients had on its website. He said: “I am talking to experienced clients and designers to try and capture all the obvious questions that someone new to buying construction would want to ask. We are building

case studies on various types of work which people can go onto the website and view.

“The hope is that, by looking at what other business owners have done, new clients will pick up most of the answers to questions they will want to ask. If they have any more questions after that, they are able to fill in a form online and we will arrange a call to discuss things in more detail.

The scheme has been based on the CCLG model where members help each other to be better clients in specific areas.

This concept was seized upon by the HSE’s Construction Industry Advisory Committee (CONIAC) working group as part of its work to reach and influence small employers and occasional clients.

Explaining why the industry should get involved, Tipper said: “It is all too easy for clients not to be clear in what they want in the first place. Therefore they go to the industry with an ill-informed brief of what the requirements are.

They then start getting prices in for something

which is poorly defined, and then there is a tendency to go for the cheapest one without understanding what is or is not included.

“The cowboy element of the industry tends to flourish on the back of that. So what we are trying to do is to make sure clients are well informed.

“Less well-informed contractors will then need to up their game and those unwilling to do so will effectively find it difficult to secure work.”

Understanding the process The buddy scheme is live and CCLG hopes that through industry collaboration it will eventually become a sustainable national scheme and be able to be extended to include domestic clients.

Eddie Tuttle, the CIOB’s director of policy, research and public affairs, said: “Having construction clients understand clearly how they fit into the construction process is so important, yet so often overlooked.

“The goal of raising the perception of the industry is one the CIOB has been working towards with its new Quality Code of Practice which includes key references to having clients at the heart of project teams. Without the client being fully engaged in the project and possibly lacking the knowledge and confidence to play their part effectively, quality can be compromised and costs can spiral.”

He added: “This Construction Clients’ Leadership Group initiative goes a long way towards addressing that, and should be welcomed by the construction sector.” ●

The clients involved so far in CCLG’s buddy scheme: l The Crown Estate l Landsec l Thames Tideway l Liverpool University l Leeds University l Imperial College London l ProCure22 l Heathrow Airport

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CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | MARCH 2019 NEWS

James Wates: programme will have a positive impact

Hackitt urges construction to start ‘behaviour change’ WATES CHAIRMAN SAYS IMPLEMENTATION OF HACKITT REVIEW RECOMMENDATIONS ARE ‘CRITICAL’

Dame Judith Hackitt has urged construction not to wait for regulatory reform and to begin changing the industry’s culture immediately.

The government has promised to implement the recommendations from her review of Building Regulations and fire safety, which followed the Grenfell Tower disaster, but Hackitt has expressed concern about how quickly the industry will respond.

Speaking before MPs during a Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee

evidence session, she said: “I recognised at the time of doing the review that the regulatory system would take time to redraft and there is a good deal of work going on.

“I said in my review we did not need to wait for the regulation before people started to change their behaviours. That is what we have been trying to push for and now we have that clear message from government that the regulations are going to be implemented in full there is a need for us to underline that. There really is no reason to wait for the regulation before the behaviour change starts to happen.”

Hackitt chairs the Industry Safety Steering Group, set up to provide strategic oversight of cross-industry delivery work on the government’s Building Safety Programme. Members – drawn from various industry sectors and regulatory bodies – include CIOB past president and quality commission chair Paul Nash.

“The people who live, work and play in the buildings that we create and manage have a right to expect that they are safe and, as an industry, we have a collective responsibility to ensure they are safe,” said Nash.

“The current system has too often prioritised time and cost at the expense of quality and, ultimately, safety. That system needs to change but that will only happen if, as an industry, we look at what we do and how we do it. We must recognise the need to think and act differently if we are to deliver buildings that are safe, now and in the future.”

The CIOB is chairing or has representation

on several of the competency working groups, set up following Hackitt’s report last June to identify and develop specific competency frameworks and accreditation pathways.

Additionally, CIOB members are participating in the early adopters programme, established in July last year, to develop and showcase good practice, raise standards within the construction sector and help shape policy interventions.

Wates is one of the eight organisations (see box) which have joined the programme.

James Wates, chairman of Wates Group, and past president of the CIOB who also sits on its quality commission, said: “We believe that the implementation of the recommendations in the Hackett review are critical to the safety of communities living in high rise accommodation.

“The Wates Group has worked with MHCLG on their early adopters programme since its inception, and we are confident it will have a positive impact on the quality of people’s homes for future generations.” ●

Hackitt early adopters programme participants: l Kier l Willmott Dixon l Wates l United Living l Barratt l L&Q l Salix Homes l Peabody

Construction mental health toolkit launched Mental health charity Mind has launched a toolkit to help employees deal with the pressures of working in the construction industry.

Devised in conjunction with volunteer organisation Building Mental Health, the toolkit contains information, links and resources to support construction employers

find out how to put employee mental health and wellbeing at the heart of their organisation.

It shows companies how to write a Building Mental Health Charter, how to get access to Construction Industry Helpline packs, and also has a link to a mental health toolbox talk showing employers

how to deliver information on mental health and start a conservation in the workplace.

The CIOB’s head of communications, Saul Townsend, said: “Construction can offer an interesting, varied and sometimes exciting career. But as an industry it has a long way to go before it can

say it does enough to support those who live with mental health issues.

We are delighted to support the toolkit and encourage our members to lead the way in supporting the welfare of others in construction.”

To find out more information, go to: mentalhealthatwork.org.uk/ construction

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NEWS MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

Interview

‘WE HAVE TO RECOGNISE CHANGE IS NECESSARY’ THIS YEAR MARKS BAM’S 150TH ANNIVERSARY AND, WHILE PROUD OF ITS HERITAGE, THE COMPANY ISN’T RESTING ON ITS LAURELS. IN THE SECOND OF OUR CEO INTERVIEW SERIES, BAM CONSTRUCT’S UK CHIEF EXECUTIVE JAMES WIMPENNY TELLS WILL MANN HOW THE FIRM IS KEEPING PACE WITH THE SKILLS AND RESOURCING REQUIREMENTS OF A FAST-CHANGING INDUSTRY

PHOTOGRAPHY: MORLEY VON STERNBERG

Royal BAM Group celebrates its 150th birthday this year. Its history includes acquisition of UK firms Higgs & Hill, Kyle Stewart and GA Construction, and the building of some of Britain’s most famous landmarks: the Tate Gallery (1897), BBC TV Centre (1960) and the Lord’s Mound Stand (1987).

BAM Construct’s UK chief executive James Wimpenny, himself 33 years with the company, is rightly proud of its built environment legacy: “These buildings are part of the fabric of society, and the industry doesn’t always get credit for that.”

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Reflecting its focus on diversity, BAM Construct UK currently has 18 women in apprenticeships

But he adds: “We have to look to the future.

The industry’s culture hasn’t changed much in a generation, but the speed that we now have to deliver has changed significantly.”

Digital technology, new approaches to people management and a global outlook are at the forefront of Wimpenny’s thinking, as he starts his second year in the CEO job.

Being part of a multi-national construction group helps in terms of ideas sharing, Wimpenny says, adding that BAM’s 2,500strong UK business is probably “learning more from its Netherlands parent and other group businesses than ever before”.

This year, Royal BAM Group has opened a 3D concrete printing factory in Eindhoven and bought into Irish modular business MHI Homes. Wimpenny says he is examining how the modular technology could work in the UK. “Some schools in the UK are built almost totally offsite now, and there are many factory-built elements on all our projects,” he says. “Can we exploit that further? In the Netherlands they have very efficient manufacturing processes which means they can get a house built within 100 days.”

But he notes that introducing offsite, BIM or other digital technology to a project is difficult, given the short lead-in.

“The challenge for the industry is that the added value in what we do is in preconstruction – the design, planning and organising of the project,” he says. “But we are not involved early enough to influence the front end.

“So, the future is better use of data. It will help us make choices quicker at the preconstruction stage. Then we can give a better outcome. And with that, will come trust in how data can improve our business.”

BAM now plans to bring standardised formats to all the data it uses on projects.

“Information management is at the heart of everything we do so we need to get that right,” he says. “That means all the hundreds of projects around the BAM business will report, manage and store their data in the same format.

“Then we can start comparing the data properly. Internal efficiencies will come out of it. But we can also demonstrate to clients how it can help their operational efficiencies.”

Wimpenny points to a Netherlands hospital BAM has built, the Erasmus Medisch Centrum in Rotterdam, where the operator is reducing operating costs with help from asset data the contractor supplied. “We could do the same for an NHS trust here,” he says.

Single source of truth Another benefit from BIM, Wimpenny believes, will be improved quality. The culture has already changed dramatically post Grenfell, he says.

“Quality management used to be a manual checklist,” he says. “But Grenfell changed all that. We have delivered projects where subsequently there has been a refurbishment and, if there’s a claim, it becomes difficult to establish who was responsible for what. So we’ve realised we need a ‘single source of truth’ for all our projects, and that’s where digital comes in.

“We are looking at a system where we can laser scan the built asset, and use artificial intelligence to check if all the assets match the model. So if, for instance, the fire stops are not in the right places, that will quickly be flagged.”

Wimpenny acknowledges that clients do not always see the benefits of BIM, from a quality, FM or whole-life operational perspective.

“We are quite fortunate in the BAM group to have the whole project life cycle represented – property, design, construction and FM – and that does influence our digital strategy,” he says.

This “overarching view” of the sector is a key USP for the group, Wimpenny believes, and is reflected in graduate training. “They get to see all parts of the business through secondments,” he explains. “People have historically stayed in one business, now we might send them across to the Netherlands.

We’re trying to bring through people who are comfortable talking about digital to customers at all stages of the life cycle.

Wimpenny on… … offsite construction

We’re examining what we can learn from our parent in the Netherlands. We’ve built up our M&E modular capability with an in-house business, which handles about 50% of our engineering services work. ...working with tech start-ups

We now recognise the potential of digital and data, and we’re starting to engage with tech start-ups.

Construction is not used to working with other industries; that’s a mindset we have to change.

James Wimpenny CV l Started out with his

family’s construction firm Eric Wimpenny and Son, which is still trading today.

l Joined BAM – then

Higgs & Hill – in 1985.

l First major

project was the Alhambra Theatre refurb in Bradford.

l Appointed regional

director of BAM

north-east business in 2009. l Appointed BAM

chief executive in January 2018.

l Sits on the

management board of Royal BAM Group.

l Yorkshire-born

and a season ticket holder at Huddersfield Town AFC.

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Casting the recruitment net wider is also, Wimpenny adds, an important part of BAM’s ...Insight profiling Brexit safety net strategy. As is boosting I’m a ‘green’– I work diversity. Wimpenny set up BAM’s diversity more on feel and like steering group three years ago, hiring a to be inclusive. It’s consultant to provide a “useful” external insight. important we understand “Since then, we’ve run unconscious bias training, how different people introduced ‘blind’ CVs for all recruitment, and react; a project manager has to know last year we supported Pride,” he says. the relative strengths of the team.

BAM has decided not to set gender quotas.

“A nice ‘problem’ we have is that people tend to stay here a long time, so it is harder to get … professional development women in to senior roles – the opportunities Both the industry and our aren’t there,” Wimpenny explains. “However, people need to recognise more female recruits are coming through at their development needs; graduate trainee level and among apprentices.”

Wimpenny on…

it’s a two-way street.

Our people need to develop digital skills and improve their softer skills. The industry needs to help with that development.

“This is important because we want longterm, collaborative relationships with our clients, such as with Argent at King’s Cross.

Digital makes it easier to collaborate – working in a virtual environment, making adjustments to models, which allow you quickly to see the cost implications.”

A conundrum for all construction companies is that, while young recruits come into the business digitally literate, many in the existing workforce are not. BAM is trying to address that through a formalised mentoring system, where the digital skills of younger generations are matched up with technical knowhow of established workers to share knowledge. “Mentoring has always been there informally, but we’ve recognised it needs more structure because of the speed of change,” says Wimpenny.

Wimpenny expects more digital skills to come into the industry from outside construction.

“I can see more roles emerging for data analysts – if the attitude is right, we can train the necessary technical construction skills,” he says.

Diversity in apprenticeships BAM focuses its recruitment on apprenticeships, and since the levy changed two years ago, Wimpenny says it has “allowed us to develop bespoke training, more connected to what we do, than generic industry schemes”. He also sees it as the best way to boost diversity; the company currently has 18 women in apprenticeships, around a fifth of the total, and the CEO says the “proportion is progressively going up”.

“We feel the chance of increasing diversity is better among younger people, whereas graduates have usually already decided about career routes,” he says.

Beyond diversity, BAM is trying to improve “soft” skills more broadly, which Wimpenny says “may be the biggest thing we need to change about our industry, more so than the technical skills”. The company has recently run insight profiling for its staff – which assigns people colours based on their preferred working styles.

Wimpenny says his ‘lead colour’ is green.

“I tend to work more on feel,” he says. “I’m not a ‘do this’ type of person, I like to be inclusive and believe you get the best out of people by creating the right environment for them to work in.”

The insight profiling assigns three other lead colours to people: red – competitive, yellow – creative, or blue – analytical. “Understanding

how different people react in different situations has been a real eye-opener,” says Wimpenny. “We are a people-driven business so it’s important, for instance, for a project manager to understand the relative strengths of his team so they’re not all charging off in the same direction.

“It’s a fast-changing world, where we need to be quick and agile, so we need the right people in different situations.”

Change management is “not easy in the construction industry”, Wimpenny believes, but says, “we have to recognise it’s necessary”.

“We have 150 years of history at BAM, we’re profitable, we keep winning work – so people think we’re doing ok,” he says. “So it can be hard to get the change message through.

“We see how other industries are changing – we built the new Rolls-Royce factory in Rotherham three years ago, and saw how they completely re-engineered their old factory into a futuristic, hi-tech plant. It’s hard to see such a transformation in construction, but we need to try.” ●

BAM’s CEO presents the outcome of his insight profiling

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19/02/2019 10:52

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NEWS MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

2%

39%

Employing more women on site ought to be a “no-brainer”, particularly given the industry’s much-publicised skills shortage. “A diverse team is more profitable, more innovative and happier,” asserts Rebecca Thompson, CIOB past president 2017/18 and founder of Thompson Heritage Consultancy.

The heritage sector bucks the wider industry trend. “Female representation

among manual workers during the £20m restoration of York Minster was an impressive 40%,” notes Thompson.

Meanwhile, one in six joiners, one in three glaziers, and 25% of stonemasons at the £12.4m restoration of Lincoln Cathedral under main contractor William Birch & Sons were women.

Thompson thinks that the way in which employers communicate about site-based opportunities is

Just 2% of the workforce in skilled manual trades are female, according to CITB figures

In 2017, 39% of manual workers across all industries in the UK were female

WHERE ARE ALL THE WOMEN ON THE TOOLS? WOMEN ARE GROSSLY UNDERREPRESENTED IN SKILLED MANUAL CONSTRUCTION ROLES. NEIL GERRARD ASKS WHAT CAN BE DONE TO BOOST THE NUMBER OF ‘WOMEN ON THE TOOLS’

Nowhere is it more obvious that women are underrepresented in the construction industry than at ground level, on the sites themselves.

Only 14.5% of the construction workforce as a whole is female, but shockingly that drops to just 2% when it comes to skilled manual trades, according to CITB figures. That’s a number that has changed little since 2014 and lags well behind the rest of the economy. Across all industries in 2017, 39% of manual workers in the UK were female.

While several larger employers are making efforts to redress the balance, there are still very few “women on the tools”. Ahead of I n ternat i onal Wome n ’s Day on 8 March, CM asks why the number of females in skilled trades positions is so low – and what is being done to change this?

The contrast between the number of women in skilled manual construction roles and those in manual roles in the wider workforce is immediately visible

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Wendy’s story

PORTRAITS THIS PAGE: LEO HILLIER PHOTOGRAPHY

Wendy Gill has worked as a self-employed tiler for 10 years

key when it comes to attracting women. “Employers need to soften the language they use, and that is not just for women but when considering diversity in every respect,” she says.

Hand-in-hand with that goes the creation of a more welcoming team ethos on site, while Thompson also highlights the importance of providing better welfare facilities in order to entice more female workers into manual trades – an issue that contractors like Multiplex are now trying to address (see box, p16).

Campaign group Women and Manual Trades (WMT), formerly known as Women on the Tools, wants more effort in engaging women in the manual trades sector of the industry.

Part of social housing procurement body Procure Plus, WMT argues that women are generally keen to know more about skilled trade careers in construction when it is presented as an option.

“We’re calling for employers to be braver, ring-fencing apprenticeship roles for women, or guaranteeing interviews for female applicants,” says Mike Brogan, chief executive of Procure Plus. “We have been working with employers and colleges to help them reach women who are keen to take up such roles.”

Donna’s story Donna Lister as worked as a self-employed domestic electrician for 12 years

York Minster: women are better representated in manual roles in the heritage sector

“Female representation among manual workers during the £20m restoration of York Minster was an impressive 40%” Rebecca Thompson, CIOB past president

As part of this, WMT has devised the 3:2 initiative, which is designed to secure students studying a trade paid work experience in construction on the two days a week they have free from college, to help them build their confidence about working in the sector.

Contractors including Connolly, Dodd Group, Emanuel Whittaker, Jackson & Jackson and the Casey Group are supporting the scheme.

“After over 15 years in the voluntary sector, I wanted to do something different.

I asked my electrician if I could shadow him. I enjoyed the variety of the work and was encouraged when he said I had potential.

“I quit my job and enrolled on a two-year part-time City and Guilds course at my

local college. It took some months but I eventually found another electrician to take me on as a part-time apprentice.

It just so happened she was another woman.

“When looking for my first job, I found it hard to get anyone to take me seriously.

When I had my interview at college, the tutor thought

“I spent 10 years in an office-based role but I couldn’t shake off the feeling of dissatisfaction.

“I had already completed a basic tiling course so I thought I might as well try my luck with that.

“I was really surprised at the response I received and wondered if there could be a place in the market for a female tiler.

“Fast forward a few years later, with a Tiling NVQ level 2 qualification, a van and a website under my belt, I’m finally feeling a sense of satisfaction.

“It’s definitely a challenge overcoming the stereotypical views associated with a woman doing what’s perceived to be a ‘man’s role’.

“Teaming up with other tradeswomen is beneficial, particularly on larger projects. We like to think we bring a fresh approach to bathroom design and the domestic bathroom fitting industry.”

Source: Women and Manual Trades

I was the girlfriend of one of the other students and had come along to show support.

“Determination helps a lot.

Plus being connected to a small but amazing network of female electricians. In fact, many of my clients choose me because I am female.”

Source: Women and Manual Trades

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NEWS MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

40%

Women make up 40% of the workforce on site at the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ UK HQ, p22

Jean Duprez warns that labour agencies are discouraging women applicants

But encouraging more women into manual trades involves more than just targeting the employers and educators, says Jean Duprez, director of Duprez Consulting and Women Into Construction.

She worries that labour agencies, which contractors rely on heavily, discourage women from coming onto their books because they don’t regard the construction environment as suitable for women.

“A rising female star of one of the pre-employment programmes I work on was rejected by one of these employment agencies,” Duprez says.

“If you think about how much labour in construction comes through the agencies, and they are saying they can’t take females on, then we definitely have a problem.”

Duprez says that there needs to be more governance of employment agencies to ensure that they provide a minimum proportion of female workers to industry, advocating the creation of a kitemark-style scheme to show that agencies comply with minimum standards.

While construction has recently began waking up to the lack of diversity in the industry, and the shortcomings it leads to, there is clearly still a long way to go before women on the tools start to be regarded as the norm on sites. ●

“If you think about how much labour in construction comes through the agencies, and they are saying they can’t take females on, then we definitely have a problem” Jean Duprez, Women into Construction

Multiplex leads call for better facilities Contractor signs up to Unite’s ‘period dignity’ campaign

Not many sites provide adequate facilities for female workers Multiplex has become one of the first contractors to sign up to a scheme devised by Unite calling for better welfare units. A survey of Unite’s female construction members found this was a “major issue” for many workers, particularly when they were having their periods.

Members’ responses to the survey included: “The toilets where I’m working are unisex Portaloos. These are usually disgusting.”

Another said: “One Portaloo. No separate changing facilities. No sanitary product bins or dispensers.

Asked for sanitary bins, got ignored.

If a female says anything they don’t like, they put it down to PMT.” The four-point “period dignity” plan asks for companies to ensure: l Each site or depot has a designated female toilet, which is always accessible, regularly cleaned and lockable; l Handwashing facilities with running water and soap are provided in all welfare facilities;

l Sanitary bins are provided and they are cleaned and emptied regularly; and l Sanitary products are provided in a dispenser in a discreet location, free to workers.

Multiplex head of community engagement Caron Dunlop said: “At Multiplex, we are committed to providing great workspaces for everyone, which includes making our sites as comfortable for women as they are for men, so supporting the period dignity campaign at our University of Glasgow Campus Development project complements what we currently provide.”

“Our work identifying new ways of improving our workspaces for everyone has recently led to the development of a whole new standard for temporary construction accommodation and offices – Multiplex Better Workspaces – and we are planning to certify all of our sites to this standard by the end of the year.”

Unite said other sites are expected to sign up in the coming weeks.

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OPINION MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

18-21

Opinion Rudi Klein SEC Group

What will the Project Bank Accounts Bill do?

RUDI KLEIN SETS OUT THE BENEFITS OF MP DEBBIE ABRAHAMS’ PRIVATE MEMBERS’ BILL CALLING FOR THE INTRODUCTION OF PROJECT BANK ACCOUNTS, WHICH IS READ FOR THE SECOND TIME THIS MONTH

Amid all the hullabaloo around the Brexit debate in parliament, the Public Sector Supply Chains (Project Bank Accounts) Bill has been introduced. This was a private member’s bill laid by Debbie Abrahams MP, a long-standing parliamentary campaigner for fair payment.

The bill will mandate the use of project bank accounts (PBAs) in the public sector for all tier 1 contracts over £500,000. It acknowledges that there is a disparity in insolvency protection as between tier 1 contractors and other

Reverse VAT means more payment headaches The new VAT reverse charge will cause more payment headaches, warns Rob Driscoll

contractors in the supply chain. Public bodies don’t go bust, meaning that tier 1 contractors’ monies are protected. This protection is not, of course, available along the supply chain.

The bill will require that the following are deposited or kept in a PBA: l progress payments; l disputed amounts as between a tier 1 contractor and subcontractor beneficiaries; and l supply chain retention monies (if deducted by the tier 1 contractor).

The inception of VAT reverse charging as of October 2019 will undoubtedly cause three major headaches for industry.

The mechanism sees the customer responsible for VAT, rather than the supplier.

The reverse charge aims to prevent missing trader fraud – where a supplier charges VAT, is paid it, then “goes missing” before declaring to HMRC.

Once a contracting authority has authorised payments, they will have to be deposited in a PBA where the monies have trust status. This means a tier 1 contractor’s insolvency practitioner will not be able to have access to the funds in the PBA. Both contracting authority and contractor will be trustees of the monies and either the authority or contractor will be account holders. Instructions will be issued to the bank to release the monies simultaneously to the tier 1 contractor and subcontractor beneficiaries.

Whether or not a subcontractor is a beneficiary will be dependent upon the value of the subcontract; the aim is to include within the PBA as many subcontractors as possible.

A subcontractor will then be able to receive payments within as little as three days once the monies are in the PBA. The bill will extend to the whole of the UK. It is expected that there will be widespread support from the industry. It was no accident that it was introduced in parliament on the same date that Carillion went bust a year earlier. If PBAs had been in place on all Carillion’s public sector projects, the losses incurred by firms on those projects would have been far less.

Messages in support of the bill should be sent to Debbie Abrahams. A second reading of the bill is due on 1 March, having been heard in parliament on 15 January. ● Rudi Klein is chief executive of the Specialist Engineering Contractors’ (SEC) Group and president of the NEC Users’ Group.

As it becomes the customer’s responsibility to account for VAT, there will be no opportunity for the supplier to disappear. But it will lead to three major issues: l In businesses that operate across consumer, tier 1 and lower tiers of the supply chain, staff will have to be retrained; l If subcontractors do not adapt and get their paperwork in order, then tier 1 contractors will use non-compliance as a means of

delaying payment until the issue is reconciled. l Supply chain contractors will no longer be able to use the monies owed to HMRC as VAT as working capital.

Subcontractors will need to prepare for this, to ensure the short-term challenges do not prove insurmountable.

Rob Driscoll is deputy director of business policy and practice at the Electrical Contractors Association.

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OPINION MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

Chris Blythe

Chief executive CIOB

Top-earning QSs are now reported to be pocketing £100,000 a year, according to recent reports.

Put that alongside the following comments, first from Dame Judith Hackitt. In her interim review report, it says: “It has been observed that the use of ‘value engineering’ is almost always about cutting cost out of a project, at times without due reference to key specification requirements…”

Another significant quote comes from the CIOB publication on Construction and the Modern Slavery Act. A leading dispute resolution expert says: “We have trained a generation of young people in the industry to think beating up subcontractors is the way business should be done – it is shameful. “ My final quote, again from Dame Judith in her final report, neatly summarises all of this: “The issues have helped to create a cultural issue across the sector, which can be described as a ‘race to the bottom’ caused either through ignorance, indifference, or because the system does not facilitate good practice.”

There are many people who work in contractors and subcontractors who are familiar with these sentiments. I know that because it is the one recurrent theme that comes up time and time again from people I meet.

It is not just a sense of aggravation, but a heartfelt belief that these sorts of behaviour

Comment

Greed isn’t good THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY NEEDS TO PUT ASIDE GREED AND FOCUS ON THE NEEDS OF THE END USER IF IT WANTS TO AVOID A RACE TO THE BOTTOM, SAYS CHRIS BLYTHE

“The overall tone of Dame Judith Hackitt’s reports – and what it says about the industry culture – have not been challenged because it is true”

seriously prejudice their ability to do their best for the end user, the ultimate beneficiary of the construction process.

To be balanced, I must add that the characterisation Dame Judith puts on, say, value engineering is considered by some people unfair and misrepresents what value engineering is about.

But the overall tone of her reports – and what it says about the industry culture – have not been challenged because it is true.

Stamp duty slowdown As the squeeze seems to continue in contracting, the “woe is me” is coming from the London apartment builders. As one said, the higher levels of stamp duty have all but killed off the central London property market. It has all but killed off high-end properties.

Most of us find it difficult to relate to the slowdown in the high-end property market – especially as many of the properties at this level are barely occupied with absentee owners. This market is not a market for Londoners.

Dame Judith was correct when she said that our culture is one of ignorance and indifference. What she did not include was greed, but that can be clearly inferred. I just hope that those raking in the £100,000 are about delivering real value rather than driving the race to the bottom. ●

Search under way for new CIOB CEO The search is under way for a new chief executive of the CIOB, following Chris Blythe’s announcement that he will retire in May this year.

Headhunter Kinvara Partners has been appointed to handle the mandate on behalf of the CIOB. Blythe is one of the longest-serving chief executives at a professional body, having served in the role for almost 20 years.

Chris Soffe, CIOB president, said: “With Chris’s influence and experience, the CIOB has

shown significant leadership on a range of issues – consumer protection from rogue tradespeople, helping to establish the industry initiative ‘Trustmark’; supporting work to tackle ‘cover pricing’, an illegal form of bid rigging; the collaboration with Stronger Together, an industry alliance, to help construction businesses tackle modern slavery and, most recently, overseeing the launch of the CIOB Construction Quality Commission as a response to the increasing number of failures in public infrastructure and housing projects.”

He added: “The CIOB has an ambition to secure a first-class new CEO. The ideal candidate will bring strategic leadership, business judgement and political nous to the role, along with an overview of the importance of the industry and how it influences and shapes society and the economy.”

Kinvara will evaluate potential candidates over the next few weeks, with an eye to final interviews by the end of March. More information is available at www.kinvarapartners.com/current-opportunities

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CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | MARCH 2019 OPINION

Concrete special: the rise of brick-faced precast cladding, p32

Feedback A selection of readers’ comments about news and issues in the industry from www.constructionmanagermagazine.com CM 25/01 Shortage rolls call Stephen McGowan

With limited labour available in the UK, the industry has to make itself more attractive than other sectors.

Unfortunately, construction companies don’t look at this.

The only reason construction is short of labour is due to the industry itself not investing in its own Industry, It’s not up to government to ensure the correct skills are available to sustain construction companies, it’s up to the companies themselves.

Roy A

If politicians (of all parties) stopped using the industry as a political football, and gave workers secure jobs instead of seeing them as casual workers, young people might see the industry as a future prospect for themselves.

Additionally, when employers finally wake up to the fact that they ALL need to train apprentices, instead of waiting for someone else to do it, they may have the “skilled” workforce they keep saying they need.

Graham Skeer

We have had this situation with EU nationals working for wages well below the UK average, thus taking UK jobs.

Organisations are calling for construction roles to be added to the Shortage Occupation List

CM 08/02 L&Q survey: young people shun construction Anthony Carroll

L&Q are to be commended for leading the way here and investing £1m of their own funds into a schools programme.

Austin Hargreaves

I joined the industry in 1965 and have found construction to be so interesting, challenging, rewarding and financially a very stable means of having a most enjoyable life.

I technically retired at age 57 years old, but as an experienced senior manager, I still found lots of opportunities to assess other managers, so that they could obtain NVQ level 6 or 7 qualifications, as experienced, safe and competent members of the qualified construction workforce.

The range of construction projects never ceases to amaze me and generates as much job satisfaction now as it did when I joined as a 16-year-old.

Les Jennison

The construction, and housebuilding Industry, together with offsite construction, robotics and energy efficiency/carbon reduction programmes affect every individual in this country, and the world.

I cannot see that this is boring – on the contrary, we all face the greatest available challenge, and the work is completely satisfying.

Hazel Howell-Smith

Delighted to read this article as I have long since thought that there has not been enough emphasis on jobs in the construction industry during careers advice in schools.

I truly hope that L&Q succeeds in promoting interest in the variety of work available to learn and to reassure students that they can succeed and be proud to be a part of this essential work.

CM 25/01 Housing complaints Kevin J Sherwood

Well it’s most definitely long overdue. The customer, whether of rented or new homes, should have peace of mind and know there is a clear support system there if unfortunately required.

I am in the industry and I feel it may help improve the standards of workmanship – that for some time now have continued to fall below what I believe to be good enough, as the industry is fundamentally driven by maximum productivity and profits.

Housebuilders’ boards seem not to be overly concerned about the end customer.

CM 12/02 Sprinkler advice Gary

Let’s be realistic. If it’s not in the building code then it’s unlikely developers will act on a “crucial recommendation”.

Charles

Gary, yes that would be the “Show me where it says” approach.

Just as well there are very limited consequences (in the event of a fire with casualties) for people who make decisions like this, isn't it?

Tania

The London Fire Brigade fail to acknowledge the additional health and safety risks to residents that fitting sprinklers will create. Very blinkered approach on their part.

Provide your own feedback on latest industry issues by posting comments online at www.constructionmanagermagazine.com or emailing the editor at construction-manager@atompublishing.co.uk

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TECHNICAL MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

22-41

MARCO TIDEI

Technical

CONCRETE: 26 PRECAST EMBACES BIM 30 BRICK-FACED PRECAST 34 STRUCTURAL VERSATILITY 36 FIVE INNOVATIVE PROJECTS

BIM & DIGITAL: 38 ROUND TABLE: MANUFACTURERS 43 ISO 19650 NEED-TO-KNOWS

Volunteer workers live on site in completed residential buildings

WITNESSING A MODEL CONSTRUCTION PROJECT IT’S A CONSTRUCTION SITE, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT. KRISTINA SMITH TOURS THE REMARKABLE NEW JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES’ LIVE-WORK HEADQUARTERS TAKING SHAPE IN ESSEX

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CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | MARCH 2019 TECHNICAL

Ian and Laura Cogswell are full‑time construction volunteers

Walking round the site of the new Jehovah’s Witness (JW) headquarters buildings in Chelmsford, Essex, is a bit like being in a promotional video for what the industry should be like. You can imagine kids watching it and thinking “Yeah, that looks a fun place to work.”

It’s difficult to say what is most shocking: the demographics or the diversity. There are a lot of young people on this site. Lunchtime in the large canteen, one of three sittings, is a bit like being back at university.

Walking round the job, there are almost as many women as men, with a woman smiling from the wheel of most pieces of construction equipment.

Everybody is happy here. The senior managers are greeted with waves, handshakes and even a hug. “Everyone here is doing it because they really want to be here,” says Keith Cady, project design manager for JW. “We don’t have to give them a cheerleading speech to get them motivated.”

A mind-boggling 4 million volunteer hours have gone into this 40,000 sq m project which will be a live-work campus and the new UK headquarters for Jehovah’s Witnesses.

It is actually several projects in one: six residential blocks, a central building for events and gatherings, an office block, two warehouse buildings, a sports hall and swimming pool. From here, the organisation will print its magazine The Watchtower, and carry out work related to online publication and translation.

Some volunteers have worked on the site for years, some come for a few days, some just for one day. Cady and Rob McRedmond, the project director, have been delivering projects for JW for 33 and 27 years respectively – though this is the first time they have worked

Jehovah’s Witnesses HQ Scope: live-work development of 40,000 sq m Cost: £150m Client: Jehovah’s Witnesses Architectural and structural design: in-house Building services design: Crofton Consulting Interior design: John Evans Fire, security and alarms: Siemens Landscaping design: Murdoch Wickham Piling contractor: Van Elle Concrete frame: HPC Roofing: Contour Roofing Programme: 2014 – 2015: Site clean-up July 2015 – November 2016: Earthworks November 2016: Construction begins December 2019: Construction complete

Husband and wife volunteers working on drywall installation

together. They describe themselves as “members of a religious order” and receive only what they need to live.

Those who are working on site for a while, stay on site. Four of the six residential blocks are already occupied by volunteers. And there is also a village of caravans. This live-work approach to construction has been lauded by BREEAM assessors as an admirable way to reduce carbon emissions and congestion on surrounding roads.

Given the number of volunteers and the wide range of skills and experience, the other aspect that surprises about this project is the quality of what they are delivering. “Don’t mistake the word ‘volunteer’ for ‘unskilled’,” warns McRedmond. “People are either very skilled or highly skilled.”

In the basement of one of the residential blocks, inspecting the combined heat and power (CHP)

“It’s not uncommon for contractors to say this is the best site they have ever worked on” Rob McRedmond project director

plant, the silver insulating lagging around the pipes is the neatest you will ever have seen.

For those packages of work that are subcontracted out, JW’s standards are equally high: “We are not developers, we are building a facility that we are going to live in. When we contract somebody to do the work, we introduce the idea that we want the best work possible,” says McRedmond. “It has surprised some contractors, the level of quality management that we have here.”

Search for a site JW’s UK branch moved into its current headquarters in Mill Hill, London in 1959. Since then the organisation had changed and grown and over time purchased properties at Wembley, Boreham Wood and Friern Barnet.

“Things got fragmented and spread out,” says Cady.

JW’s six-year search for a new home covered 300 sites before it found the 33ha Temple Farm site in Chelmsford, Essex. Having been a car breaker’s yard and an illegal waste processing site, the area was in a sorry site.

Chelmsford Council welcomed them with open arms, says McRedmond, who was involved with the search. “While we had in mind a different property, when we met with the local Chelmsford Council, they recommended this site 23

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TECHNICAL MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

because planning permission already existed for a previous development that did not go forward.”

Cady says that the planning process has been “very smooth”. “We have never waited for any planning permissions and never been held up in any way by the planning or approval process,” he says.

The council’s planning officers have been intimately involved in the scheme, making suggestions about a whole host of things from windows and views to the style and feel of the buildings. And, perhaps unlike some commercial architectural firms, Cady and his team have been willing to take those suggestions and work with them.

Though thousands of car carcasses were removed by the previous owner, JW still had a massive clean-up operation when it arrived on site in 2014.

Much of the ground was contaminated, as revealed by an extensive borehole survey, and 800 tyres were unearthed and recycled. The saving grace was that the contamination was largely limited to the top 600mm, since below that is clay.

The clean-up involved moving the contaminated ground into huge heaps to be sorted through by volunteers for anything recyclable. The remaining muck was then entombed in a claylined pit at the edge of the site. The location is registered but should not be disturbed again, says Cady. “That saved us millions,” he comments.

The landscaping of the site is an impressive project in itself. Landscape architect Murdoch Wickham is working to create what will be a beautiful facility for those living on campus and for local residents, as there is a public footpath running around part of the boundary.

There were several ponds on site which are being added to, with some of them forming part of a SUDS system.

Existing trees, including oaks, and ancient hedgerows have been saved and exploited in the design while 700 more trees have been planted. A strategy to increase biodiversity is already bearing fruit, with the return to the site of the endangered European dormouse.

The development has been assessed as Outstanding under BREEAM, only the second to do so under its community scheme. It has also won the very first innovation credit for a community scheme, thanks to the environmental benefits of having much of its workforce living on site.

Several projects in one Having gained planning approval in 2015, earthworks ran on the site between July 2015 and November 2016 when contractor Van Elle began work on the first concrete-piled foundations.

Volunteers will pitch in and help subcontractors

The five-storey residential buildings, with their in-situ reinforced concrete frames and brick facades, are cleverly designed so that car parks at ground level appear to be underground. Earth is ramped up to the first-floor level, reducing the height of the blocks visually.

The civic building is steel frame to allow open spans, clad in precast concrete which has come to the site from a fabricator in Belgium. The two warehouse buildings are long-span portal frames with cladding coloured to help blend them into the hills behind the site.

The design team considered four different systems before choosing reinforced concrete in situ frames for the four-storey office block. “One of the reasons we went for reinforced concrete is that it acts as a thermal mass,” says Cady.

HANNAH SHANKLAND

4,000,000

The 40,000 sq m campus just outside Chelmsford has involved 4 million hours of volunteer work by Jehovah’s Witnesses

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JATHAN ROGERS

CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | MARCH 2019 TECHNICAL

Some 700 trees have been planted, and ancient hedgerow saved

Good progress A huge amount has been achieved on this site in just over two years. The landscaping has progressed in parallel with the building which means that by the time everything is done and dusted at the end of this year, the site will be well established.

Though many construction managers would dread the prospect of working with a mixed team of subcontractor and volunteers, the opposite has been the case here. “Rob and I have not worked on many projects that have run this smoothly,” says Cady. That said, many of Cady and McRedmond’s projects have been overseas where working environments, skills levels and cultural constraints are far more challenging.

The project is run by a committee headed up by McRedmond, with Cady and three others. They take decisions together and have autonomy to run the project in the best way.

“We had a number of women on site and we found out that they made excellent heavy plant operators”

DAVID BLEEKER

The building services for the office, now being fitted out, have been designed to allow the spaces to be open plan, portioned or a combination of the two. “One of the things the client was very interested in was flexibility in design,” says Cady. A system involving 3m by 4.5m modules, with chilled beams, has delivered this requirement. The fire system was a particular challenge, with the solution being an aspirating system.

Both warehouse buildings were well progressed by January 2019, with a steel stud and plasterboard contractor working on office space and changing room facilities at the ends of the buildings. As were the steel-framed sports hall and cross-laminated timber swimming pool, which make up a wellbeing centre.

Keith Cady, project design manager

Women make up around 60% of the site’s plant operators

This includes letting packages out to meet programme and volunteer skills constraints and changing scope where necessary, for instance swapping to permeable asphalt from block paving on a car park to help with programme and budget.

Subcontractors aren’t expected to work with volunteers. However, if they look as if they need it, McRedmond would offer help: “If a contractor is falling behind or does not have the resources, we pitch in and help them.

We encourage them to come to us if they have any difficulties.”

It feels like a good environment to work in. “It’s not uncommon for contractors to say this is the best site they have ever worked on,” says McRedmond.

It’s certainly rare to come across a site with its own hairdresser. Yet, here, there is one. A hairdresser who lives in a neighbouring town donates a day or half a day a week. She’s contributing her time, which means fewer expenses to pay to the volunteers, explains McRedmond – which in turn helps the donations from members go further.

Leaving site, it’s still a bit of a shock to be waved at so enthusiastically by the security guards. But it does mean that visitors leave with a smile on their face. ●

Women on site: no big deal The Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) project in Chelmsford has almost inadvertently become a champion of women in construction.

It came about because many of the thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses who have turned up to volunteer – some of them for months or years – are women.

“There are a lot of young couples,” says Keith Cady, project architect for JW. “They come because one of them has a particular skill set, in some cases the man, in some cases the woman, although the reality is that it’s more often the man.

“We found we had a number of women on site so we started looking at the best way to use them.

We found out that they made excellent heavy plant operators.”

The team put a site training plan in place for a variety of equipment, such as telehandlers, diggers and cranes. Now around 40% of the workforce and 60% of the plant drivers are women.

“We don’t have prejudice. We don’t have wolf-whistling on site or any disrespectful behaviour,” says JW project manager Rob McRedmond, who has worked with women on numerous previous JW projects.

There are female tradespeople on site too. We walk past a male and female plasterer.

The man seems to be explaining something to his colleague.

“That’s funny,” comments McRedmond with a wry smile, “because she’s actually far more experienced than him.”

The most noticeable thing about this site is that there’s nothing special about being a woman here. And that means that female workers want to stay on the project, and that they encourage their friends to volunteer here too.

There’s got to be a lesson for the wider industry in here somewhere.

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CONCRETE MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

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Concrete

Clockwise from top left: Detail of Techrete’s model for the V&A Dundee; FP McCann used Tekla to custom design bespoke precast units for DIRFT; Creagh’s concrete cores for the company’s HSBC project in Sheffield

HOW QUICKLY IS CONCRETE ADOPTING BIM? THE CONCRETE SECTOR’S BIM JOURNEY IS PROGRESSING AT DIFFERENT SPEEDS; PRECAST SPECIALISTS ARE EMBRACING THE TECHNOLOGY, BUT IT’S EARLY DAYS FOR THE RC FRAME SECTOR. WILL MANN REPORTS

BIM’s relationship with concrete to date is a tale of two halves. While BIM use on reinforced concrete frame projects has been limited, as CM’s research with Trimble on p28 shows, the precast sector is quickly discovering the technology’s benefits.

“Precast is perfectly placed to exploit BIM,” says Matthew Butcher, environmental and technical officer at British Precast. “Precast firms are working in a controlled factory environment, which is ideal for the principles of design for manufacture and assembly.”

“The government is prioritising use of offsite manufacturing, and now wants a ‘platforms’ system of standardised components, while major clients like Heathrow are also moving in this direction.”

BIM software house Trimble sees exciting digital possibilities for the precast sector. Business manager Ismail

Makda says: “Digital construction can facilitate the workflow between different stakeholders on a project. An architect can send their 3D model to the precast firm, who can create a highly detailed model with all the embeds, reinforcement and so on, while the engineer can use the model to assess the structural characteristics, such as wind loading.”

FP McCann became the first precast specialist to achieve BIM Level 2 accreditation with BSI, two years ago, and completed its first BIM Level 2 project last year, a warehouse job at the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT).

“The shift to working in a data-rich 3D environment has meant significant additional work, training people in new software and developing components with embedded data,” explains senior technician Colin Mackenzie. “Benefits have included clash detection, for

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Techrete used Tekla to model the positioning of 2,400 concrete planks at the V&A Dundee

example, allowing steel frame issues to be highlighted early, and quicker design.”

The company typically works with the architect’s 3D model and Mackenzie says federated models are rare. “We generally work at LOD [level of detail] of 4 or 5,” he says. “More recently, we have started receiving BEPs [BIM execution plans], where the LOD and LOI [level of information] have been specified for various project stages.”

On the DIRFT scheme, Mackenzie adapted Trimble’s Tekla software to speed up design of bespoke precast units.

“There were, for example, 77 T-wall sections required, of which 30 were bespoke,” he explains. “Each one would have taken two hours to model individually. Instead, using the custom components editor in Tekla, I defined possible parameters for the bespoke elements. Then, when the designers began work, they could define the unique requirements of each unit, such as different dimensions, fixing positions.

“Working this way, we designed each unit in just two minutes. The total modelling took less than a week.”

Mackenzie says FP McCann’s greatest gain from BIM adoption has been the parallel development of internal production processes.

“Using the embedded data in our Tekla software, we have been able to transfer information to lasers allowing quicker and easier mould set-up,” he says. “Additional investment in data driven mesh/rebar machines, adopting simpler reinforcement configurations, will accelerate rebar cage fabrication.

On box culverts, we’ve reduced cage fabrication time by 50-60%.”

The next step in FP McCann’s BIM transformation is coordination with logistics. “Software firm StruSoft has supplied us with their Impact system,

“Benefits have included clash detection, for example, allowing steel frame issues to be highlighted early, and quicker design” Colin Mackenzie, FP McCann

Creagh modelled three concrete cores in Revit to meet a 16-week delivery date on its HSBC Sheffield project

which links with our modelling data, and allows our planners to assign units to casting beds in the factory and then link up with deliveries to site,” Mackenzie explains.

Meanwhile, Creagh is also seeing advantages from implementing BIM across its business. Connor McMahon was project manager on the company’s Sheffield HSBC project, where Creagh was brought in by main contractor BAM with just 16 weeks’ notice to deliver three concrete cores.

Each one was 34.5m tall and comprised 17 precast sections, consisting of flat walls, “C-shape” units, boxes, stairs, landings and capping slabs. The largest sections were 8m by 4.6m across and 2m high, weighing around 27 tonnes.

Creagh modelled the cores in Revit to LOD 5 then worked collaboratively on the design with other project team members.

“The model became an interactive tool, so we could visualise the product on the project virtually, before the prefabricated component is cast in the factory and arrives on site,” McMahon says. “Creagh uploaded data drops to the common data environment [CDE] used on the project, so this provided Bam with evidence of how the precast cores had been developed.”

He says a rise in productivity has increased Creagh’s trust in BIM: “We can work quicker, with more accuracy

on cost build-up for estimates, reduced lead times, and improved timeframes during the critical path process.

“We are seeing better quality control, with a reduction in remakes and miscasts, plus we can be sure of ordering the exact quantities of cast-in components. BIM has promoted more sustainable and lean manufacturing processes internally.”

Precast firm Techrete used Trimble’s Tekla package on the V&A Dundee.

“As there were no straight external walls, the challenge of designing, manufacturing and installing the 2,400 precast concrete panels, which brought the geometrically complex design to life, was recognised at the beginning of the project,” explains Makda.

“Therefore, BIM was used throughout the project, with every precast plank modelled by Techrete. This allowed the design team to search the model, zoom in and spin the plank around to ensure it fitted the design.”

While the V&A Dundee has been a showcase for BIM, Makda feels there is still “work to do to enable external stakeholders to collaborate more effectively through digital construction”. There is a culture of retaining information they consider sensitive, he says, but BIM is about “openness and transparency”.

Mackenzie believes there needs to be more drive from clients for BIM to be fully implemented. “We currently find that while there is intent, it is not necessarily followed through with full adoption,” he explains. “We have worked on three projects where the client wanted BIM Level 2 protocols, but the schemes did not end up being managed that way.”

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Slow BIM take-up for RC frame construction

In association with:

Research by CM and software specialist Trimble indicates reinforced concrete frame contractors are lagging behind other structural specialists on BIM uptake. Duncan Reed explains

DIRFT was FP McCann’s first Level 2 project

“Designers will be able to call up EPD data from all products on a project using the BIM model and obtain up-to-date environment assessments” Matthew Butcher, British Precast

the Construction Products Association on its Lexicon concept, the plan for a single data standard across all industry product categories.

Precast objects in the NBS National BIM Library are mostly limited to infrastructure products. FP McCann, for instance, has uploaded pipes, rings and manhole covers. However, Mackenzie says there is “limited demand” to extend the provision of standard components across other product groups.

Meanwhile, British Precast has created Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), with life cycle assessment data, for several product groups, which will allow greater sustainability scrutiny through BIM. “Designers will be able to call up EPD data from all products on a project using the BIM model, and obtain up-to-date environment assessments on those materials to inform the specification,” explains Butcher. ●

A survey by CM and Trimble Solutions of around 100 construction professionals has thrown up an interesting disconnect between the understanding of the benefits of using BIM on a reinforced concrete (RC) frame project – and whether those benefits are realised.

The potential benefits are well recognised, with over 50% of respondents recognising that the technology aids: structural design; connections and interfaces with other components and work packages; reinforcement detailing; programming; and temporary works design.

But BIM is only used in wellestablished processes such as clash detection, structural analysis and design. However, many aspects of the construction process that could benefit from data held in a digital format: supply chain management, procurement

and safety planning are all areas where models are rarely used.

Safety planning can be improved by using the model to determine sequencing of the works, temporary works requirements, access, egress and giving site workers access to up-to-date and relevant safety information.

Risks associated with procurement and supply chain management can be mitigated by the accurate quantities contained in a model and the ability to allocate every part of the project to a works package. As the work progresses on site, the model can also be used for a quality check as well.

The results show that while other structural framing solutions are seen to be a mature BIM option, there is a perception that in situ concrete frames are not as developed. Some 79% of respondents consider steel subcontractors to be at least

What BIM is used for most commonly on RC frame projects

capable of working with BIM, and precast is not far behind with 67%.

This isn’t really a surprise, as steel fabricators and detailers have worked with Tekla Structures for decades, as have a high proportion of precast concrete fabricators. Both disciplines have used 3D models for design and are also pushing constructible data through to manufacture, site scheduling and logistics.

By comparison RC frame subcontractors are only considered to have a degree of capability by 57% of respondents, despite the functionality in Tekla Structures being available to them. The results show there is some way to improve from 7% to the “very capable” 26% score of steel subcontractors.

This is perfectly achievable now with the software available.

Duncan Reed is digital construction process manager at Trimble Solutions

Potential benefits of BIM on RC frame projects 80%

Clash detection Design Structural analysis

60%

Construction programming 0%

20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

40%

n Very rarely n Rarely n Occasionally n Commonly n Very commonly

BIM capability of structural frame suppliers

20%

Steel Precast

0%

Timber RC frame 0%

20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

n Uncapable n Not very capable n Capable n Somewhat capable n Very capable

n Aiding structural design n Connections/interfaces with other components/packages n Reinforcement detailing n Programming n Temporary works design n Cost management n Introducing precast elements

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Intelligent 3D modelling software designed to help you deliver all types of concrete and rebar elements at the right time to the right place. Integrating design and detailing with manufacture, project management and efficient information sharing Tekla Structures can do it all.

Together we are shaping a smarter future for construction. www.tekla.com/uk/solutions TRANSFORMING THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS

CONCRETE MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

Working for Multiplex, Thorp Precast supplied around 1,100 precast panels to the Cartwright Gardens student accommodation project in Bloomsbury, London. The units included threestorey “T-sections”, each weighing 12 tonnes

“Complicated designs, including perforation, soffits, corbelling or other patterning in the brickwork, are much easier” Chris Bell, Sterling Services

THE RISE OF BRICK-FACED PRECAST CLADDING BRICK-FACED PRECAST CONCRETE CLADDING GIVES A BUILDING THE APPEARANCE OF BEING TRADITIONALLY BUILT – BUT THE USE OF FACTORY METHODS OFFERS ADVANTAGES IN TERMS OF DESIGN, QUALITY AND SPEED. WILL MANN EXPLAINS

Brick buildings are back in fashion – but not all of them are built using traditional brickwork construction.

Increasingly, many use precast cladding panels – with the bricks fitted to the panel in the factory, which is then transported to site and installed on the building.

“Once complete, you would be hard-pressed to tell the buildings were not built with traditional brick construction,” says Elaine Toogood, senior architect at The Concrete Centre.

Aside from the aesthetics, brickfaced precast cladding offers the usual advantages associated with offsite manufacturing, including high product quality, speed of installation and reduction in site labour.

Clients, architects and main contractors are now recognising these benefits, says Thorp Precast technical manager Steve Morgan.

“Most jobs start as traditional, hand-set brickwork projects,” he explains. “In Thorp’s early days, we would sell the brick-faced concept on buildings above four storeys to the main contractor, who would then convince the client. That’s still the case on many jobs today.

“There is some resistance from clients and architects to consider brick-faced cladding, because of precast concrete’s brutalist reputation. But architects are

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Eight key benefits of using brick-faced cladding Sterling Services supplied 215 brick-faced precast cladding units (left, in mould) – each weighing up to 10.4 tonnes – for this 11,500 sq m civic centre in south London, part of Morgan Sindall’s Lambeth Town Hall (below left)

beginning to appreciate the advantages and the design possibilities.”

T h e s e i n c l u d e s o p h i s t i c a te d patterns or details that would be hard to achieve on a tight programme with traditional brickwork.

“Complicated designs, including perforation, soffits, corbelling or other patterning in the brickwork are much easier,” says Chris Bell, managing director of another precast specialist, Sterling Services.

“Architects realise that it gives them more scope to play around with the design. We’re currently working on a herringbone pattern on one project which would be nigh on impossible to do with bricklayers on site because of the level of detail required.”

Morgan points to Thorp’s Victoria Gate Arcade project in Leeds, where the firm supplied 525 brick-faced panels to main contractor Sir Robert McAlpine. “This

brickwork is incredibly intricate, and it wouldn’t have been possible to achieve the programme if built in situ,” he says.

“Architects can push the boundaries,” believes Toogood. “The aesthetic of brick construction has developed out of the way it has to be built. For example, you need a lintel because you have to span a window. But you don’t need that with a panel. So an architect could decide to recreate the traditional appearance, or do something completely different.

“It may also be possible to use a more expensive brick than the budget for a traditional brickwork project might have allowed for, because less brick material is being used,” she adds.

Architects also see the quality control benefits of manufacturing, Morgan says. “They sign off the brickfaced panels in the factory,” he explains.

“If they are inspecting brickwork on site, and spot any issues such as colour variations, that is much harder to rectify than in the factory.”

Thorp can work with “almost any kind of brick material”, Morgan says.

“There is a perception that irregular or hand-made bricks can’t be used with precast panels because of issues placing them within the grids. That’s not our experience. We have used all sorts of bricks and installed them in numerous types of patterns and recesses.”

Typically, Thorp will use a 50mm-thick brick slip, with positive key, for its brickfaced cladding. “It is possible to go as thin as 17mm, with rib backs, which gives a positive key,” explains Morgan.

“Sometimes we will go as thick as 65mm, for a three-hole perforated brick, where we have to cut the brick in half just beyond the perforation, so we can get the positive key. But that is not ideal as it leads to more waste and makes the panels heavier.”

Brick-faced cladding offers many advantages on a construction project. Steve Morgan, technical manager at Thorp Precast, explains Warranty. Brick-faced cladding panels are fully warranted, with a design life guarantee of 50 years minimum and scope to increase this to 100 years.

Design, manufacture and installation follows the longestablished BSI standards BS 7543 (Durability of buildings and building elements, products and components), BS EN 1990 (Basis of structural design), BS 8500 (Guidance for concrete specification) and BS8297 (Design and installation of non-loadbearing precast concrete cladding).

Fire safety. Materials and designs used meet the requirements of the Building Regulations, NHBC and other insurance providers.

Non-combustible insulation materials applied to the internal face of the panels in buildings over 18m also achieves full compliance.

If necessary, firestops can be accessed following panel installation.

Reduced loading. The dead loads of brick-faced panels can be up to 60% less than for traditional methods of construction. This offers potential for using brick facades more widely on high-rise buildings. There is also no requirement for secondary steelwork, for example to support glazing, as precast panels are designed to accept these loads, as well as wind loads.

Time and cost certainty.

Construction programmes can be up to 50% less when using brick-faced cladding instead of traditional

brickwork. Without delays caused by shortage of bricklayers or weather, time and cost certainty are guaranteed.

Fewer site trades.

No external scaffolding is required, unlike for traditional brickwork. Door units, windows and insulation can be installed in the factory.

For main contractors, far less supervision and management time is required.

Reduced waste. With brick-faced cladding, there is no onsite storage required as panels are lifted off specially adapted delivery vehicles directly onto the building. There is no packaging to dispose of and little site waste, meaning no need for skips and associated hire costs.

Health and safety. The working at height risks of traditional brickwork are eliminated. Panels are lifted into position by crane and finishing is carried out using MEWP or cradle access. Once the cladding is installed, the internal trades are protected from the weather. Noise levels are minimised, a benefit both for site workers and neighbours.

Quality. The finishing of brick-faced cladding is of high quality as the panels are manufactured in a controlled factory environment. Mortar joints can be pointed in the mould, while panel to panel joints can be kept to a minimum of 10mm, creating the appearance of traditional brickwork on the finished building.

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Q&A: Technical considerations when using brick-faced cladding Elaine Toogood, The Concrete Centre’s senior architect, on the design considerations and technical requirements of brick-faced cladding

Thorp Precast supplied 525 brick-faced panels to main contractor Sir Robert McAlpine for the Victoria Gate Arcade project in Leeds. Technical manager Steve Morgan says the “intricate” brickwork patterns would have made the programme impossible if built in situ

Sterling Services recently invested in a Ferrari automatic brick-cutting machine. “Depending on the architect’s specification, we can now cut any bricks into slips or pistols,” Bell says. He adds that the important issue for Sterling is ensuring the bricks are positioned in the moulds correctly and pointed properly.

Moulds are no different than for other architectural precast cladding. “We can incorporate any bond pattern or recess details,” says Morgan. “The shuttering

defines dimensions and incorporates punch windows. We will incorporate the glazing in the panel at the factory prior to delivery and installation.”

Joints between bricks on panels are pointed in the factory using conventional mortar, so are indistinguishable from traditional brickwork, but joints between panels are harder to disguise.

“The BS 8297 standard says joints between panels should be a maximum of 20mm, but we have worked hard to reduce that to 10mm on our projects,” says Morgan. “For mastic seals on soft joints, there have been advances in the colour ranges, and sometimes we will ‘dust’ the joints, so they are harder to detect.

Architects are taking this on board.”

On site, the installation benefits come into their own. “Logistics is a big factor, particularly on city centre sites, such as our Lambeth Town Hall scheme which was in the middle of Brixton,” says Bell.

“But we don’t need scaffolding, and there isn’t the need for onsite storage of the bricks, the silo, a forklift for moving bricks around. There is not the worry about bricklayer availability or weather delays.”

M o rga n j o k e s t h a t t h e m a i n contractor will never admit what the benefits are in pure cost terms.

“On paper, it looks like it should cost twice as much as traditional,” he says. “But when you factor in all the advantages – certainty of delivery, quality of product, reduced site labour, a warranty – the cost gap narrows.

Certainly, many main contractors think that it’s worth paying the premium.”

Morgan sees brick-faced cladding becoming more widespread as architects and clients appreciate its long-term durability. “Concrete facing will eventually stain due to the effects of weather and pollution,” he says. “Brick, on the other hand, ages well. It is far more enduring.” ●

Are design principles the same as for conventional precast cladding?

Brick-faced cladding uses similar design principles to other forms of architectural precast, but panel sizes should align with brick dimensions.

Offcuts should be avoided.

Detailing of reinforcement, thickness and specification of concrete will be determined by structural requirements and performance specification.

Panels are typically around 200mm thick, incorporating facing brick which is usually around 50mm thick.

Can brick facing be used for other precast components like balconies?

Brick facing can be used for bespoke applications, including arches, columns, balconies, soffits as well as conventional wall panels.

Can windows be fitted into the panels?

As with all precast cladding, insulation, doors, windows and other facade features can be factory-fitted if required.

Are there any restrictions on the types of brick used?

Virtually any brick material can be used, but not all types are appropriate or can bond into concrete. A positive key at the back of the brick anchors it to the concrete. For brick slips, this profile of well-formed grooves is created when manufactured. For cut bricks the original perforations can provide the anchor once cut, otherwise a dovetailed slot can be cut into the back.

At window reveals, corners, corbelling and other threedimensional details, bricks will require multiple finished faces, and specials may be required.

Significant efficiencies can be made by using bricks with four usable faces.

How are bricks placed into the mould?

Bricks are placed facing-side down in the concrete mould, in the required bonding or pattern. Proprietary templates are used to hold the bricks in position, spaced apart by 10mm for the mortar joints.

Non-standard patterns or sizes will require proprietary spacing templates. Three-dimensional elements may need additional means of supporting the bricks until the concrete has cured.

The reinforcement and any lifting eyes and fixing supports – typically located on hiding facings – are then put into position and the concrete placed into the mould.

Once it has reached its required strength, the formwork is struck and the panels turned over. The brickwork is cleaned and, where required, mortar joints pointed. Brick slips offer the time-efficient option of prefilling the mortar joints before the concrete is poured.

Are there any special requirements for joints?

Joint widths between panels are typically larger than the 10mm mortar joints and are determined by the tolerances necessary for manufacture, natural shrinkage, thermal expansion and installation.

They should not exceed 20mm.

The joints are filled with sealant after installation, specified to ensure the appropriate thermal expansion and avoid colour-staining. A “dusted seal”, where the joint is rubbed with mortar dust when newly applied, provides better visual consistency.

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CONCRETE MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

The Concrete House in East Sussex used fibre-reinforced selfcompacting concrete

THINNER AND STRONGER: CONCRETE’S STRUCTURAL VERSATILITY THE RANGE OF STRUCTURAL APPLICATIONS FOR CONCRETE IS GROWING SIGNIFICANTLY, AS R&D GATHERS PACE. CEMEX NATIONAL TECHNICAL MANAGER RICHARD KERSHAW EXPLAINS

CHRIS NORTH

Steel fibre was used to reinforce the main inner lining of the Lee Tunnel in east London, as part of Thames Water’s sewer upgrade

It’s one of the oldest construction products in the known world, so surely the boundaries for concrete have been pushed as far as they can?

When the Romans invented concrete, they could not have dreamt just how ubiquitous this material would become, how it would shape the development of the built environment across the world and help improve the lives of its citizens – but they must have had some idea that they were on to a good thing.

At a time when Britons were building huts using wattle and daub, Emperor Hadrian – he of wall fame – had commissioned and built the Pantheon in Rome, complete with 42m diameter concrete dome. It still stands today.

Since then concrete has become the go-to construction material. There are no parts of the world that remain untouched by it. Today it’s the most consumed man-made material in the world.

But its ubiquity has not stopped its continuing development. Across the world scientists, chemists, engineers, mix-designers and concrete specialists keep pushing the material’s boundaries.

Research and development (R&D) has always been an integral part of the concrete sector – and its structural possibilities have grown significantly.

This is partly down to growing use of fibre-reinforced concrete. Increased understanding of the efficiency benefits it offers project managers has seen its popularity increase.

The use of steel fibres to reinforce concrete can reduce or eliminate the requirement for heavy, cumbersome steel reinforcement bars – improving durability and reducing permeability and plastic cracking, while offering a reduction in labour and material costs. It has been proven in both civil engineering and building applications recently.

Contractors used 500 tonnes of steel fibre to reinforce the slip formed main inner lining of the Lee Tunnel in east London as part of Thames Water’s sewer upgrade scheme which will help reduce the number of stormflow discharges in the River Thames.

And Cemex researchers in Switzerland, based at the company’s global R&D centre, have helped deliver an innovative, efficient home in the UK using its Resilia HP fibre-reinforced selfcompacting concrete for the structural walls and horizontal elements.

The Concrete House in East Sussex was featured on Channel 4’s Grand Designs and the use of Resilia HP enabled the design team to reduce the amount of steel reinforcement to less than 60% of the original total.

There is a perception that fibrereinforced concrete is costlier than steel-reinforced concrete, but that isn’t always the case. Developers perhaps don’t factor in the overall construction cost savings. Advances in fibre dosage designs have led to higher tensile and flexural strengths, which can be helpful when value-engineering a scheme.

Those efficiencies will continue to grow, as researchers and academics across the globe are looking at ways to improve the material’s elasticity and ductility. Innovations in development include self-healing concrete, superthin concrete – even floating concrete.

Modern methods of construction will demand thinner, stronger concrete that can provide significant cost savings.

Over the last 30 years we have seen the average strength of concrete we supply soar. In the 1990s, a 40N concrete was considered specialist.

Now it is not uncommon – particularly on central London sites – for us to supply 100N mixes. ●

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3D printing helps Ely bridge project Formwork specialist RMD Kwikform helped the complicated construction of the Ely bypass bridge (below) in Cambridgeshire by 3D-printing a visualisation of its planned solution (left).

The V-shaped bridge piers have a complex geometry, with heavy loads running through to the foundations, which was difficult to model accurately in 2D. RMD Kwikform’s 3D-printed model helped main contractor VolkerFitzpatrick and formwork contractor Sword visualise the project, rectify potential issues in advance, and understand the engineering tolerances.

IN PICTURES | FIVE OF THE LATEST CONCRETE INNOVATIONS CM TAKES A LOOK AT NEW AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS IN CONCRETE, FROM DIGITAL DESIGN INNOVATION TO LOW-CARBON CEMENT PRODUCTION

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Keltbray installs ‘first ever’ cement-free pile Keltbray Piling has installed what it claims is the first ever permanent works pile using a zero cement concrete, Cemfree.

Working for Taylor Wimpey at Mount Pleasant, London, Keltbray is installing a secant wall and bearing piles for main contractor Bouygues. The Cemfree material, manufactured in the UK by DB Group, is a low-carbon alternative to traditional cement, which Keltbray says has the structural characteristics of traditional concrete, is more resistant to chloride ingress and requires fewer construction joints and less crack-control steel.

Cambridge researchers developing self-healing concrete

Old clothes and carpets fuel cement plants Cement manufacturing is energy-intensive, and Cemex has been pushing the use of alternative fuels, which now account for 58% of its UK production. Climafuel (below) uses household waste, including shredded paper, carpet, textiles and plastics. Cemex is also replacing cement through use of fly ash and GGBS in mixes, while byproducts of the production process – cement kiln dust and bypass dust – are being developed for use as replacements for cement in soil stabilisation applications. Cemex is also using 100% renewable electricity at all its supplied sites.

Hanson’s record pour on tallest City tower Hanson says it recently delivered the highest ever lightweight concrete pour in London, on 22 Bishopsgate, the 278m tower which will be the tallest building in the City on completion next year. The materials firm is supplying 52,000 cu m of structural concrete on the 62-floor steel-framed tower, which has a central jump-form concrete core and perimeter columns. Hanson, which recently reached level 54, says its pour beats the previous record of 50 floors set by RMC at One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, in 1984. Main contractor is Multiplex while Careys is concrete contractor.

Cambridge is the latest university to research the potential of “self-healing” concrete, using microencapsulation technologies developed

by Dolomite Microfluidics.

Microcapsules containing “healing” agents – such as epoxy or polyurethane – are added to the material to allow self-repair of small cracks which develop due to fatigue.

Cambridge’s researchers plan to add the microcapsules to the concrete prior to use, which are ruptured as cracks appear, releasing their payload and stabilising the material.

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BIM & DIGITAL MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

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BIM & Digital

WHAT ROLE DO MANUFACTURERS PLAY IN CONSTRUCTION’S DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION? FOR THE FOURTH IN OUR SERIES OF DIGITAL DEBATES, IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CENTRE FOR DIGITAL BUILT BRITAIN, WE EXAMINE THE ROLE MANUFACTURERS HAVE TO PLAY IN DELIVERING BIM LEVEL 2. WILL MANN AND NEIL GERRARD LISTENED IN

PHOTOGRAPHY: JULIE KIM

Clockwise from top left: Paul Surin (Wienerberger); John Bedford (Ark Consultancy); Terry Stocks (CDBB); Jaimie Johnston (Bryden Wood); Tim Thomas (BASF); Jeff House (Baxi)

If manufacturers didn’t know it before, they are now realising the importance of data to their digital strategies. The product data they produce could be “the bedrock of the digital twin” and has the potential to shift their position of influence in the construction supply chain.

How do they drive the changes required? What is the best way to make product data accessible? How

do you keep sensitive information secure? How can their data contribute to t h e “go l d e n t h re a d ”? Th e s e were some of the questions that arose during the discussion among manufacturers who gathered for the fourth in our series of digital debates, organised by Construction Manager, the Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) and the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB).

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What part do manufacturers play in delivering BIM Level 2 as business as usual and is this properly understood by the construction industry?

Terry Stocks, leader of the CDBB BIM Level 2 workstream – who chaired the discussion alongside Fiona Moore, BIM Level 2 programme manager at CDBB, and David Philp, BIM Level 2 communications manager – kicked off by asking how mature manufacturers are in terms of digital object and asset data creation.

It quickly emerged that the sector suffered a false start, with some companies quick off the mark to invest in file-based objects, pushed in part by tier 1 contractors. A trust issue had also emerged around these objects, as designers downloading the information found it was not always being maintained and its integrity was lost once downloaded. Most manufacturers now recognised that organising themselves internally and focusing on data was key.

Alex Small, BIM and digital platforms manager at Tata Steel, explained: “A few years ago, manufacturers were feeling the pressure to go out and generate objects. People did that ahead of prioritising data, the main reason being there was no recognised standard to tell them how to do it. The big message in the UK BIM Alliance Product Data Working Group report published last year was that manufacturers have got to get to grips with our data.”

A l a c k o f c o l l a b o ra t i o n a n d consistency, with manufacturers often going off and doing their own thing, has also created issues, according to Jitin Mitra, partnerships director at Ilke Homes. “Everyone is creating their own system. There is no continuity o r c o l l a b o ra t i o n w h i c h m e a n s it gets very difficult when you get into things like warranties, insurance and mortgages,” he said.

“The big message in the UK BIM Alliance Product Data Working Group report published last year is that manufacturers have got to get to grips with our data” Alex Small, Tata Steel

John Bedford Ark Consultancy At the moment, the client doesn’t understand the value of digital delivery, so manufacturers need to convince them.

The construction industry is completely disengaged from that process, particularly in housing.

Jeff House Baxi Heating We have to be central to the digital conversation.

It doesn’t seem to me as though we are going to end up with a very specific steer from government, so we have to agree the data formatting between ourselves.

Paul Surin Wienerberger For manufacturers, a digital transformation means more reliable, responsive and accessible information to support business decisions.

Manufacturers need to be able to govern their own data to avoid duplicates, inconsistency and the need to maintain multiple systems with multiple naming conventions and languages.

Alex Small Tata Steel Manufacturers need to provide structural, interoperable, linked, trusted data. In terms of what we can do for driving a digital built Britain and digital twins, that is about ensuring that the right stakeholder has access to the right information in the right format at the right time.

Matt Crunden Legrand We are the foundation stone because nobody knows our products and services better than we do. We have the capabilities if we collaborate. What we really need is parity with the client, consultant, and architect, because traditionally the manufacturer has always been bottom of the pile.

Jitin Mitra Ilke Homes Manufacturers need to provide the detail in a format which we can share with the end user. It is up to us to sell the value of that data to the client.

Geoff Ball Wilo Our purpose as manufacturers is to supply not only the physical product but also the data that goes along with it. The question is which stakeholder do we give it to and at what level. We need a level of engagement from end users and building operators if we want to fully digitise the manufacturing and operating process.

John Parsons BEAMA There is a journey for the entire industry towards digitalisation.

Manufacturers are probably the first movers in all of this because it is the data they are going to provide that is going to start feeding through the industry.

Jaimie Johnston Bryden Wood P-DfMA is a massive opportunity for manufacturers to get closer to clients. It should be making the tier 1s feel very nervous. With BIM Level 2, we are starting to get to a new baseline.

It is time to start defining what the next level of the journey looks like.

Joe Darlington Manufacturing Technology Centre The common themes in this discussion were about leveraging data through the life of a project. Manufacturers need to look for the value in the data, so it is about constantly looking at it through different lenses.

Matt Price Ibstock Brick Manufacturers play a massive part in BIM Level 2.

They are the source of information. But they are getting bullied by different groups into trying to get the data rather being engaged to get it. That is what needs to change.

Tim Thomas BASF The use of a CDE, digitisation and virtual twins allow us to unlock sustainable benefits in construction.

Understanding of BIM Level 2 differs hugely across all stakeholders in the industry. We have an opportunity to educate contractors and installers in how to manage these mass data environments.

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Meanwhile, some reported that BIM understanding remained low further down the supply chain. Geoff Ball, technical specification manager at Wilo Group, observed: “We get a lot of mechanical and electrical contractors asking for objects when in reality they just want a 3D Revit drawing. It is the understanding within that level of the industry that is not quite on the same page.”

As manufacturers traditionally sit at the bottom of the supply chain, they have tended to react to their customers’ needs or regulations when it comes to generating data for components. Steven Heath, technical and strategy director, Knauf Insulation, said: “If the customer is asking for it and is willing to place a value on it then we react. If there is a likelihood of a regulatory push then you obviously respond – and I think we can see this with the Hackitt report.”

If manufacturers fear they are being left behind, then they will act, argued Tim Thomas, global consultant, sustainable construction at BASF. “There is this fear of missing out. You may be losing sales because everyone is talking in a digital language and you are five years out of date,” he said.

But there is change in the air. Some manufacturers have decided to pursue the digital transformation agenda for the internal benefits it can bring – and a growing realisation of the power of data to put them closer to clients.

Paul Surin, head of digital built environment at Wienerberger, said the international supplier of building materials and infrastructure had used Steve Thompson’s Product Data Definition report for the BIM Task Group to create internal targets for delivering digital data for their products. This was helped by strong

Manufacturers discussed the importance of data within digital strategies

Key takeaways from the debate

buy-in from the group board and from his boss, a former executive at IBM, he added.

“Our BIM business case was not even looking at the clients at first place,” Surin explained. “We wanted to get our business to use data as an asset and to improve the business internally first. We have structured our data and have introduced data and information management. We reduced our attributes by about

1.

Driving a digital strategy in manufacturers needs to come from the CEO down.

2.

Focusing on structuring data, and generating internal efficiencies, should be a priority.

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“We wanted to get our business to use data as an asset and to improve the business internally first” Paul Surin, Wienerberger

30% by avoiding duplicates. So, any product manager in any EU country who sets up a new product does not have to worry about CPR regulatory requirements; they have to fill in only about 20% of the attributes as the rest is standardised.

“We are still experiencing tier 1s asking manufacturers for objects, some even forcing it, and that is confusing the industry. BIM Level 2 requirements don’t really matter to manufacturers the way they matter to tier 1s. BIM Level 2 for manufacturers equals structured, governed and interoperable data.

Manufacturers need to get their data out in a format which is readable by all project stakeholders who will then start to realise how the data can work and help them.”

Wienerberger has begun to see the benefit of its digital transformation strategy. It collaborated through a consortium (Home4Life) with other manufacturers and suppliers on housing projects in Surrey.

“The consortium has worked with the client through a collaborative and lean approach, adopted the suite of recommended BIM Level 2 BSI standards and guidelines, including a common data environment (CDE) and linking structured data in order to close the performance gap,” explained Surin.

3.

Manufacturers can use data to gain greater influence at the top of the supply chain and develop closer relationships with clients and users.

4.

The use of Platform DfMA – standardisation of factory components – is a big opportunity for manufacturers as the government looks to make construction more efficient.

The case for Platform-DfMA Last November, the Infrastructure Projects Authority (IPA) launched a call for evidence on using more standardised components on construction projects – otherwise known as platform design for manufacture and assembly (P-DfMA).

Alex Lubbock, head of digital construction at the IPA, believes manufacturers should be excited about the potential of P-DfMA. “We announced in 2017 a move to a presumption in favour of offsite manufacturing,” he said.

“What we are trying to do now is two things: open up what we procure to new markets in terms of manufacturing and technology and bring the productivity gains that those sectors have achieved over the last 30 years into construction,” he explained.

He highlighted how P-DfMA could help in the ambitions set out in the Hackitt review to have a “golden thread” of information running through projects. “The quality of what we are getting delivered is sometimes not good enough and we

5.

A “servitisation” model could emerge, where manufacturers offer an addedvalue service to customers alongside their traditional products.

6.

Construction product data can be a foundation stone of a digital built Britain and a key element of the digital twin.

7.

Manufacturers have a key role to play in the delivery of Hackitt’s “golden thread” of information.

8.

need more rigour and standardisation enabled by digital and manufacturing technologies,” he said.

Johnston, who is a keen P-DfMA advocate, thought the concept could allow manufacturers to create digital marketplaces, drawing them closer to the end user. “If you [as a manufacturer] knew you were going to be selling millions of components, you would find a really good way of making them,” he said.

“You can then imagine a digital marketplace with the government saying, ‘across all my departments I am buying X number of these’.

“That would massively compress the digital distance between the client and the manufacturer,” he added.

Lubbock added: “It’s worth pointing out that digital objects connect the client, consultant and tier 1 contractor with the manufacturer, so they will be a core part of the P-DfMA approach, as a container for that interaction. A component platform is still predicated on a digital object. Geometry and data are separate but meet at that transaction.”

Manufacturers’ data can help drive the carbon agenda, as environmental product declarations and lifecycle assessments start to be included in product data information sheets.

9.

As data use grows, the security of that data will become an increasing consideration.

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John Bedford of Ark Consultancy (left) and Alex Lubbock of the Infrastructure Projects Authority (IPA)

Approaches to managing data

He revealed this led to a 2-3% cost saving during the Stage 0-4 of RIBA Plan of Work.

Joe Darlington, chief engineer for digital manufacturing at the Manufacturing Technology Centre, saw parallels between the way manufacturers are grappling with managing their data and what is already happening in aeronautical and automotive. “Could construction learn from these industries?” he said.

Philp thought that improved data management could see “manufacturers move towards a ‘servitisation’ business model”, where an added-value service component is delivered to customers alongside their traditional products.

Baxi Heating’s head of external affairs Jeff House thought that the carbon agenda has the potential to drive this. “For example, heat

pumps and heat recovery ventilation a re m o re ex p e n s i ve t h a n w h a t housebuilders are used to installing,” he said.

“But with proper asset data around those, and in-situ tracking, there could be a shift towards leasing rather than outright capital purchases of the equipment.”

In general, the panel saw benefits of manufacturers working more closely together on standardisation of product data, with Legrand BIM manager Matt Crunden describing this as potentially the “foundation stone” of a digital built Britain.

The potential in Platform-DfMA (see box) and the possible emergence of a digital marketplace was also recognised.

Small added: “Once a manufacturer’s data is structured, other opportunities open up.” ●

All manufacturers present agreed on the need for improved data management of their products, but how should they decide on the best approach?

Philp noted that unstructured data – “data lakes” – may not be useful currently but could be mined in the future. “For example, if I want to look at operational performance evaluation of boilers, I want to do like-for-like comparisons on all available data of all products,” he explained.

Small agreed: “One man’s trash is another man’s gold. We might not think it relevant for anyone else to know what the postcode of your asphalt supplier is but take that and the postcode of the site and you have got your delivery mileage.”

Moore warned about data security. “There will be nuggets of data in there that the client hadn’t anticipated. We need to consider the security-minded approach taken for projects in the military world for example,” she cautioned.

Johnston stressed the “mental rigour” necessary when approaching structuring of data. “There is certainly a pruning process you need to do first,” he said. “You might have 850 attributes which loads of people don’t need. You need to identify the key ones.”

He added that data understanding should come with an organised route through the BIM adoption process. “The first iteration was people putting all the data into the model. Next was separating out geometry and data, then using COBie and that was a subset of IFC. So if you have gone through those steps then there is always a logical next step,” he said.

“But you can’t be lazy and jump to the end,” added Moore.

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CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | MARCH 2019 BIM & DIGITAL

John Ford Galliford Try

ISO 19650: Need-to-knows about the new BIM standard A NEW INTERNATIONAL BIM STANDARD HAS BEEN PUBLISHED, ISO 19650. GALLIFORD TRY’S JOHN FORD EXPLAINS HOW TO INTERPRET AND APPLY THE STANDARD

The long-awaited first two parts of a new international BIM standard ISO 19650 have been published. The move marks the transition from the PAS 1192 series of standards to international standards.

The first and most important thing you need to know about BS EN ISO 19650-1 and 2 is that the processes are practically identical to those defined in the BS 1192:2007 and PAS 1192-2:2013 suite of documents. The reason this is important is that if the process is the same and you already have good compliance with the 1192 suite, then believe it or not, you are good to go already.

Those responsible for implementing information standards into their organisational policies and processes need to recognise that the visible changes in BS EN 19650, such as terminology changes, do not impact the process. As long as the process is compliant, the terminology does not have to be.

You do not need a document called “Exchange Information Requirements” (EIR) to be compliant. What you need is something

“You don’t need to rename or amend everything you have produced, including the likely dozens of procedures you have already compiled for PAS 1192 compliance” that satisfies EIR expectations within BS EN ISO 19650-2 (clauses 5.2.1 and 5.4).

If you already have a single document or tool that fulfils this, but is called something else, that is fine as long as it satisfies the requirements. You should insert a phrase saying, “Documents x, y and z define our EIR in compliance with BS EN ISO 19650-2”.

Now, you may of course still want to have a single document, listing acronyms such as EIR, as it makes compiling and reviewing easier.

That is fine, but you don’t need to rename or amend everything you have produced, including the likely dozens of procedures you have already compiled for PAS 1192 compliance. Simply insert statements where necessary indicating that these procedures align to the relevant definitions in BS EN ISO 19650. This can work for both short-term and long term-adoption. The key message here is to ensure that the process is compliant.

My recommended next step is to highlight all the aspects of the ISO 19650 that apply to you.

This may be most of it, if you’re an asset owner, project manager or main contractor – as you may be both an appointing party (employer) and an appointed party. You may have a lot of roles, tasks and functions to perform. If your role is relatively simple in the chain, like a manufacturer or supplier, you may only be an appointed party and have far less to consider.

Finally, ensure your organisation has processes in place for what the ISO is asking you to do. If 19650 tells you to jump, your organisational standards, especially if they are champions of ISO 9001, should tell you how high.

You must be compliant with your organisation’s protocols first. If none are present, then you must work with them to develop some, as an organisation can’t obtain maximum value from reinventing the wheel on every new project based on individual interpretations. ● John Ford is BIM & digital information technical development lead at Galliford Try.

What is ISO 19650?

ISO 19650 is an international standard for managing information over the whole life cycle of a built asset using BIM. It contains all the same principles and high-level requirements as BIM Level 2 and is closely aligned with the current UK PAS 1192 standards.

In Q1 2019, the first two international standards of the ISO 19650 series are being published: BS EN ISO 19650-1 covers concepts and principles; BS EN ISO 19650-2 covers delivery phase of the assets.

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LEGAL MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

Legal Delay damages provisions are common in UK construction contacts but the required parameters of those “liquidated damages” clauses remain a shifting picture. The case of GPP Big Field LLP v Solar EPC Solutions, decided in November 2018, suggests that the practicalities of agreeing these clauses are still uncertain.

It is generally acknowledged that there will be some loss suffered by a client if a construction project is not completed by a certain date. The actual loss will differ depending on the circumstances. Clients often consider costs of supervising a prolonged project, costs of renting buildings in lieu of a new building being complete, and more notional losses such as interest on capital that has been invested for which no benefit has been received, or loss of profits that would have been received had a building been open to customers.

It is worth remembering that it is not necessary for a construction contract to include express damages provisions.

Instead, the starting point should be that the delay would be a simple breach of contract which would give rise to a right of the client to claim general damages for breach.

Often this is not considered to be an acceptable position because the necessity to prove actual losses when claiming general damages is more onerous for the client and more likely to be litigious than a clear obligation for the contractor to pay defined liquidated damages. Sometimes clients will define an easily claimable amount of liquidated damages to incentivise the contractor to complete on time and therefore penalise the contractor in the event of a delay.

For almost 300 years, it has been established that a clause which is a pure penalty – intended only to secure money

Assad Maqbool Trowers & Hamlins

Liquidated damages: cloudy picture in solar case ASSAD MAQBOOL EXAMINES THE ARGUMENTS OVER LIQUIDATED DAMAGES IN A CASE WHERE THE CONTRACTOR MISSED THE COMMISSIONING DEADLINE FOR FIVE SOLAR PLANTS

without any reference to the primary purpose of a contract – is unenforceable in English law. But the parameters of this doctrine have been murky when applied to liquidated damages in construction.

The case of GPP Big Field LLP v Solar EPC Solutions related to a number of engineering, procurement, and construction contracts for solar generation plants in the UK. When Solar EPC’s subsidiary contractor Prosolia (now insolvent) failed to achieve the

specified commissioning date, GPP Big Field claimed liquidated damages.

However, the delay damages specified in the contracts did not refer to the output of the plants and prevailing electricity prices and therefore did not attempt to estimate the actual loss suffered, leading to an argument that these should be considered voidable penalty clauses.

In deciding that the delay damages clauses were acceptable, the court referred to the recent cases of Makdessi and Parking Eye. These limit the circumstances where courts will consider a liquidated damages provision to be an unenforceable penalty to cases where the liquidated damages amount is “out of all proportion to any legitimate interest of the innocent party in the enforcement of the primary obligation” – the primary obligation being execution of the works.

The upshot of Makdessi and Parking Eye, as supported by GPP Big Field, is that where a liquidated damages amount is agreed, particularly between sophisticated commercial parties, and the amount is not “exorbitant or unconscionable”, the court should support the principle in English law of the freedom of parties to contract on terms they agree and therefore uphold the validity of the liquidated damages clause.

What is disappointing about the GPP Big Field judgement is it suggests that, to establish whether the amount is “out of all proportion” or “unconscionable”, the court would need to consider if the amount agreed was less than a “genuine pre-estimate of the losses likely to be suffered”. This again takes us away from the certainty and freedom to agree a liquidated damages amount as part of commercial contract negotiations in the knowledge that it will be enforceable. ● Assad Maqbool is a partner at Trowers & Hamlins.

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l Expand your knowledge online l Stay up to date with the latest techniques and technology l 100s of free CPD articles available

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COMMUNITY MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

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Community WHAT’S HAPPENING IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL BODY

47 48 50 51 54

OPEN DOORS 2019 WILLMOTT DIXON IN AFRICA CIOB’S NI EXAM SUCCESSES DIARY DATES ME AND MY PROJECT

Event

Conservation conference set in world heritage site EVENT TO FOCUS ON QUALITY AND STANDARDS IN NEW SETTING The CIOB’s conservation conference – dedicated to the conservation, adaptation and maintenance of the built environment – is now in its fifth year.

This year’s event, which will explore quality and standards in the heritage sector, is being held at Church House in the grounds of Westminster Abbey – a World Heritage Site with over 1,000 years of history.

Chaired by Ros Kerslake OBE, chief executive of the Heritage Lottery Fund and National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF), the day comprises presentations and case study sessions that explore heritage restoration projects from the UK. Platinum sponsors are Coniston and Sir Robert McAlpine. ● The event costs £110+ VAT per delegate. Details and booking at http://bit.ly/conservation2019

CMYA

Are you this year’s Construction Manager of the Year?

LAST CHANCE TO ENTER

The CIOB’s Construction Manager of the Year Awards (CMYA) opened for nominations back in January and this month is your last chance to enter.

CMYA is the CIOB’s annual celebration of industry talent.

Showcasing the finest, it celebrates the achievements of the person and not the project.

The 2018 winner, Neil Lock MCIOB of Wates Construction, said: “Being recognised for

what you do day in, day out, is just brilliant.”

CMYA is free to enter and is open for nominations until 15 March. To submit a nomination – you can nominate yourself or a colleague – visit www.cmya.co.uk.

The CMYA annual dinner, celebrating the finalists and announcing the overall winner, will be held on 18 September in London.

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CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | MARCH 2019 COMMUNITY Community is edited by Nicky Roger nicky@atompublishing.co.uk

Open Doors: Sites across the country will be open to the public between 18-23 March

Event

Sites open doors across the UK

EVENT ALLOWS PUBLIC TO LEARN ABOUT CONSTRUCTION

Open Doors 2019 takes place between 18-23 March. It aims to allow the public to see how the buildings and structures in their communities are constructed and find out about the diverse range of skills and professions needed on site, to promote careers in construction.

The most recent Open Doors event saw over 5,200 bookings across more than 275 construction sites in England, Scotland and Wales.

Membership

Calling all CIOB members – want to help the next generation of members?

VOLUNTEERS SOUGHT FOR PROFESSIONAL REVIEW The CIOB is looking for members (MCIOBs) to volunteer as Professional Review (PR) Champions. As many of you will know from experience, the final stage to gaining membership of the institute, and being able to use MCIOB, is the Professional Review.

This is the process during which candidates are assessed to ensure they have the right knowledge, skills and experience in three areas of

Main contractors involved included Willmott Dixon, BAM Construct UK, Galliford Try, Kier, Taylor Woodrow, ISG, Skanska and Balfour Beatty among others.

Delivered by Build UK, in partnership with CITB (under the banner of Go Construct) this regular event offers a unique chance to see behind the scenes at major “live” construction sites across England, Scotland and Wales.

This year’s diverse sites vary from the UCLH Proton Beam Therapy Centre Phase 4 in London to the listed building of Dixons Sixth Form Academy in Leeds. ● To see the full programme and to book places visit https://opendoors.construction competence: occupational, management and commitment to professionalism.

Demand for the Professional Review is high and the CIOB needs champions.

It is looking for those who can: l Challenge constructively; l Actively listen; l Offer honest advice; l Question in a supportive manner; and l Help individuals to find their own solutions. ●

If you are a CIOB member and have a good understanding of the current Professional Review process and perhaps want to develop your own communication skills, please contact the PR team at intenquiry@ciob.org.uk. The CIOB will provide support and training for those wanting to be PR Champions.

Membership

FCIOB now confirmed as benchmarked at master’s degree level FELLOWSHIP STATUS REACHES NEW HEIGHTS As CIOB members will be aware, gaining Fellowship status from the CIOB demonstrates a very high level of achievement: Fellows are among the most experienced and knowledgeable professionals in the industry.

This has now been recognised by NARIC, the designated national agency for the recognition and comparison of international qualifications and skills.

NARIC has benchmarked the Fellowship grade as comparable to master’s degree level for those completing the process from November 2018 onwards.

The Fellowship route is also now more open than in previous years. Changes made in 2017 included the development of a new pathway to Fellowship – for the very first time, Fellowship is open to those who aren’t already CIOB members.

This route doesn’t rely on qualifications but requires an applicant to demonstrate effective leadership of people, leadership within organisations and a contribution to the improvement of the sector.

The route to Fellowship for current CIOB members is similar to the previous route but the process was changed to reflect the industry’s changing needs.

Ros Thorpe, the CIOB’s associate director of education and standards, said: “The intention behind the changes was to better highlight the leadership qualities the candidates have developed and make sure the standard is keeping up with the needs of the construction industry in the 21st century.

The assessments, both for existing members looking to upgrade and those looking to gain the Fellowship directly, include a “reflective account of practice”, focusing on one project or initiative they’ve led. This is followed by a panel discussion, which is essentially a peer review of the candidate’s written submissions plus a question at the end of the session on a current industry issue.

The requirements for those who aren’t MCIOB are a little more testing – the written submissions must be longer and the discussion sessions take at least an extra 30 minutes.

Thorpe added: “We also hope we’ve finally removed the perception that Fellowship comes as a result of ‘time served’. I’d like to see more candidates going for Fellowship in the middle of their careers, demonstrating their skills and the value of their roles.”

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COMMUNITY MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

Kevin Dundas (far left) and Tim Carey of Willmott Dixon visited Cameroon

Charity

CIOB members in African school charity initiative WILLMOTT DIXON EMPLOYEES VISIT CAMEROON PROJECT

Two schools in Cameroon have been funded by the venture

Two members of the CIOB and employees of Willmott Dixon recently travelled to Cameroon to officially open one of the schools funded by a charitable initiative they are heavily involved in.

Kevin Dundas MCIOB and Tim Carey FCIOB were among a group who visited Africa for the School for a School charity. The charity was Mental health

Novus quiz to raise funds for Mates in Mind BRISTOL HUB PLANS PUB QUIZ FOR CHARITY

set up by Sunesis (a joint venture between Willmott Dixon and Lungfish, which delivers predesigned schools) which funds a new school project in Cameroon for every school it sells in the UK. “We have already funded two schools, plus funded new furniture for another and are soon to be sending funds for our third and fourth schools early in 2019,” says Dundas.

Members of the CIOB Novus Bristol Hub are organising a fundraising pub quiz for the benefit of Mates in Mind.

Mates in Mind aims to raise awareness, address the stigma of poor mental health and improve positive mental wellbeing in the UK construction industry.

Quiz questions will include general knowledge, a

construction-related round, as well as a round of questions on mental health.

The team behind the event is looking for sponsorship and donations from large sector organisations and smaller local businesses, offering prizes to be won in the quiz, raffle, business card lottery and charity auction.

“We work in collaboration with an amazing charity called Building S c h o o l s fo r Af r i ca . Th e y a re a UK-based charity founded by a retired doctor and teacher and have spent the past 10 years dedicating their lives to improving the lives of others.

They also have an NGO partner in Cameroon called SHUMAS. “A group of us from Willmott Dixon, Sunesis and Lungfish travelled to Cameroon to open one of the schools we funded. Whilst there we visited several schools that were are on the list for funding. And were also privileged to meet the prime minister, minister for education, minister for health and also the British High Commissioner. ●

Find out more about the trip by reading Kevin Dundas’s blog at https://sunesis.co.uk/news

The event is due to take place on Thursday 16 May, during Mental Health Awareness Week.

The CIOB Novus Bristol team hopes the quiz will become an annual event.

To support the event or to take part contact Daniel Samson, assistant project manager at Mace, at Daniel.Samson@macegroup.com

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CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | MARCH 2019 COMMUNITY

Members

The New Addington Leisure Centre site will offer training opportunities

Training

New ‘skills academy’ boosts opportunity for Croydon WILLMOT DIXON TRAINING INITIATIVE IN CROYDON Willmott Dixon is working alongside the London Borough of Croydon on the New Addington Leisure Centre – but it is aiming to offer more than a sporting facility with the build.

The contractor’s Building Lives Academy will offer constructionrelated training in collaboration with MRG Services, Carshalton College and Croydon Council’s job brokerage service Croydon Works.

Event

Train your brain for success EXPERT TO SHOW HOW POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY WORKS WONDERS Tom Flatau, the managing director of Teamworking International, is holding talks and one-to-one meetings to discuss the neuroscience of leadership and neuroplasticity and how it affects your work success and helps leadership.

The events take place in the Channel Islands in May but all CIOB members are welcome and the CIOB is organising site visits after the event for anyone who attends.

It will allow people to learn Level 1 construction operations, practical skills training, CSCS training, Level 1 health and safety at work and employability skills.

“We plan to upskill between 10-15 people every six weeks and once trained, they can apply for placements with Willmott Dixon, our supply chain partners and other construction jobs advertised through the Croydon Works employment service,” says Richard Pickett from the firm.

Su cce ss w i l l b e m e a s u re d i n “outcomes” – the number of people who gain a qualification that leads to a job, rather than the number of attendees.

The contractor plans to mirror the academy at sites across the country.

In 2018 it was awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the category of Promoting Opportunity, for its social value work. ● In his talks Flatau will explain how transforming your mindset can deliver career benefits to you and your team.

The seminar sets out to challenge you to unlock barriers and bring success, happiness and fulfilment in the workplace, as well as learning how to get twice the productivity out of staff.

Flatau’s work has helped leaders from companies including HSBC, Emirates Airlines, Siemens, American Express, Emerson and Louis Vuitton.

He will also explore the neuroscience of resilience and how to manage the stress of deadlines, back-to-back meetings, long hours, presentations, staff issues, even family demands. ● To book a place and find out more details about flights and accommodation visit ciob.org or contact: cbenjamin@ciob.org.uk

ENGIE construction specialists become chartered members TYNE AND WEAR FIRM CELEBRATES CIOB SUCCESS

Seven employees in CIOB Training Partner ENGIE’s Hebburn office have now achieved MCIOB status ENGIE’s Hebburn office is celebrating the professional success of its team with seven employees of the CIOB training partner achieving Chartered membership.

In addition, Paul Young, operations manager for ENGIE Places and Communities in the North East, has just recently stepped down as the chairman for CIOB’s Newcastle Hub. He said: “I’ve had a great two years as chairman for the local division of the CIOB and it’s doubly pleasing for me that as I step down from that post, I’m able to celebrate the fact that ENGIE is now a CIOB Training Partner and seven of my peers and colleagues have been accredited as fully Chartered members (MCIOB).

“This accolade is a great achievement for the company, as it marks the highest levels of competence and professionalism, providing assurance to clients and other professionals procuring our services.

It’s also a huge triumph for

our colleagues in their own career development as the construction standard is recognised around the world.”

Congratulations to Jonathan Horner, operations manager; Anthony Carr, planner; David Kinleyside, site manager; Simon Watson; project manager (pre-commencement); David Watson, construction manager and Barry Metters, construction manager, who are pictured with Mark Kearney, business improvement director and Lee Francis, area director.

Commenting on receiving his CIOB membership, Horner said: “Chartership is a recognition of ongoing development and within the construction industry it’s important to stay ahead of change, to ensure we grow as professionals, raise standards within our organisations, both at a corporate and site level and demonstrate to our clients that we have the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver work safely and efficiently.”

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COMMUNITY MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

Right: Folkestone’s new urban sports park will complete in summer 2019

Below: The QTAS group receive their CIOB certificates at the awards evening

Site visit

Members offered tour of new urban sports park build JENNER’S NEW FOLKESTONE FACILITY IS TO BE WORLD’S FIRST Awards

CIOB awards celebrate exam success NORTHERN IRELAND CEREMONY REWARDS HIGH PERFORMANCE

Above: Peter Clarke receives his award for achieving the highest marks in Ireland

CITB NI hosted another successful CIOB lecture and awards evening in January, acknowledging local students in their professional exams in 2018.

The lecture was presented by Heron Bros and focused on its work in completing the £27m Foyle College, which was awarded the

overall winner in the Construction Excellence Awards 2018.

Certificates were awarded to 34 candidates who successfully passed their CIOB examinations last year through QTAS and Training LMS training organisations.

Peter Clarke (QTAS) was presented with the Best Overall Performance Award for his outstanding results in the CMP programme in 2018 – achieving both the highest marks in Ireland and overseas.

Gary Blair, CIOB Belfast Hub chair, praised the candidates’ work. “There are more candidates than ever going through the CMP programme in Ireland, which is testimony to the standing in which chartership of the institute is now regarded – and the standard is also rising year on year,” he said.

The award for the best full-time final year Ulster University Student BSc (Hons) Construction Engineering & Management was also presented to Mark Kitson.

As part of the ceremony, certificates were awarded to those who gained top grades in GCSE Construction and Built Environment in 2018. First place was awarded to Craig Francey of Dunclug College, Ballymena. Second place went to Rebecca Gilbert of Rainey Endowed School, Magherafelt, and third to Nathan Nelson of Ballymena Academy. ●

“There are more candidates than ever going through the CMP programme in Ireland – and the standard is rising year on year”

Members in the Kent area will have the chance to view the construction of the world’s first multi-storey urban sports park.

Currently being built in the heart of Folkestone by Jenner, a privately owned regional chartered building company, the facility will provide the opportunity to participate in many different sports including skating, boxing, climbing and bouldering.

Each f loor of the facility will be distinctive, offering a unique experience for visitors. The centre will include nearly 600 sq m of climbable spaces and the ground floor will host a competition sized boxing ring.

The urban sports park will be managed by Shepway Sports Trust (SST), a Folkestone-based independent charity established to encourage participation and excellence in sport.

The scheme has been designed by Guy Hollaway Architects and will be delivered using various construction techniques including timber and concrete surfaces for the skate floors, combining the need for durability and flexibility to modify and upgrade as skating trends evolve.

The building is set for completion in summer 2019. ● The site visit takes place on March 26.

To book, email blawrence@ciob.org.uk

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CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | MARCH 2019 COMMUNITY

Madisen Judge

Meet a member

Madisen Judge, project services student

Events

Diary dates HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CIOB CALENDAR FOR THE COMING MONTH. FOR MORE EVENTS VISIT CIOB.ORG

Contract Comparisons 5 March, 7pm-9.30pm Tonbridge Join the CIOB Maidstone hub and a selection of leading experts in contracts and law for a discussion on the key risks in the latest forms of standard construction contract. Each speaker will present their considerations of the main risks and advantages of working with the forms.

Speakers are James Frampton, barrister with Keating Chambers (NEC); Stefan Berry, associate with Quigg Golden (JCT); and Edward Quigg, Quigg Golden - barrister (non-practising), chartered procurement and supply professional and civil engineer (chair).

Contact: blawrence@ciob.org.uk BIM, Digital Life, the Universe and Everything CPD 12 March, 6:30pm-8.30pm, Brighton A CPD event session from BIM and design management expert John Eynon FCIOB, owner/director of Open Water Consulting, who will give an overview of the digital transformation of the built environment and the impact of BIM on design, construction and operation of built assets, in the wider context of UK BIM Level 2 and Industry 4.0.

Eynon is a qualified architect who has specialised in construction design management and is author of The Design Manager’s Handbook and The Construction Manager’s BIM Handbook. He is currently ambassador for the UK BIM Alliance, chair and director of BIM Regions UK CIC, a consultant trainer and coach for Digital Node and a university lecturer.

He is also researching a PhD related to BIM and design management at Leeds Beckett University.

Contact: bmilton@ciob.org.uk

Drone On! 14 March, 6pm-8pm, Norwich A presentation and Q&A on drones

by Bexcopter. The firm has worked with a range of construction companies, offering clients video, photo and 3D opportunities.

Contact: ycollis@ciob.org.uk.

Breaking Big – SME workshop 19 March, 6pm-8.30pm Maidstone A workshop for SME owners/directors showing how to quickly and clearly review where your business is right now and consider what should be done to achieve your personal vision.

The event will help you to develop the marketing, people management and the financial strategies for your business to achieve breakthrough growth and success.

The course is delivered by Peter Searle, a director at Kier for 10 years before setting up his Business Doctors business in 2015.

Contact: blawrence@ciob.org.uk Grenfell: Cladding and Tall Buildings 20 March, 6pm-9pm, Oxford A joint Constructing Excellence event led by James Bessey, partner at law firm Blake Morgan.

Contact: ecatalano@ciob.org.uk Time Management 28 March, 6pm-8.30pm Bristol Utilising the CIOB Guide to Good Practice in the Management of Time in Major Projects 2nd Edition, the seminar will provide an overview of the guide, covering: l Core principles l Strategy l Building the time model eveloping and managing the lD time model l Communication.

The presenters are Robert Clark of Failand Consultancy and Trevor Drury of Morecraft Drury and 12 Old Square Chambers. They were members of the working group and content contributors to both editions of the guide.

Clark specialises in project and programme management and is a chartered construction professional and Drury is a barrister and chartered construction professional.

Contact: nbreakspear@ciob.org.uk

Tell us about your journey so far in this industry?

I’m 24 years old and I live in Perth, Western Australia.

I’m currently going into my last year of my construction management degree (at Curtin University), which is pretty exciting but also very daunting.

So far most of my experience in the industry has been in quantity surveying, where I’m a cadet and have been juggling my studies while working four days a week (for Woodside Energy). I love going on site and liaising with the contractor, client and other consultants – you get to learn so much about the industry by just asking questions!

You were quite vocal at the Members’ Forum in Toronto last year about “the old boys’ club”. For anyone who wasn’t there can you please share your views?

I think due to the nature of the construction industry previously being viewed as a male-only industry has made it an “old boys’ club”, with no offence meant at all by that statement! Nonetheless, it can also make it an industry that women don’t feel 100% comfortable in as it isn’t as common to see a woman on a construction site.

At the Members’ Forum I met so many great members who always commented that some of the best mentors or professionals they know in the industry are women which is great, however it shouldn’t come as a surprise! I think that while promoting women to join the construction industry is great, for me, I feel more pressure to prove myself to be considered a construction professional rather than just a woman in construction.

I think that in order to move forward, women in construction shouldn’t be talked about as a different entity within the industry but just as construction professionals.

What are your career ambitions?

I chose the construction industry because of its influence and importance all over the world. I love to travel, and I first fell in love with architecture rather than construction, but soon found out after a few years of an architecture degree that I’m more interested in the construction side of buildings.

I would love the chance to travel while working in the industry to experience different methods and considerations for construction and its methods.

But for now, I’m just focusing on finding a good graduate programme for next year – so, baby steps to start with.

How do you spend your spare time?

I like to go to the beach, or when I have the time I like to go camping with my boyfriend and my dog, Jed, around Perth.

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Tuesday 30 April 2019 l Church House, Westminster

Conservation, Adaptation and Maintenance of the Built Environment An informative and inspiring event for professionals in the heritage and conservation sector.

Now in its fifth year, this popular conference, run in partnership with English Heritage, will be exploring quality and standards in the heritage sector.

Meet an array of inspirational speakers, and witness a series of fascinating case studies that showcase impressive heritage projects from around the UK. And what could be a more fitting location than Church House, a Grade II listed building nestled in the grounds of London’s breath-taking Westminster Abbey?

DON’T MISS OUT, SECURE YOUR TICKET TODAY

https://events.ciob.org/conservation2019

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COMMUNITY MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

Me and my project

Going swimmingly IN THE HEART OF KNIGHTSBRIDGE A HIGH-END RESIDENTIAL PROJECT IS TAKING SHAPE. JAMES LUND-LACK TALKS US THROUGH ITS EXTRAORDINARILY HIGH SPEC AND THE CHALLENGES OF THE POOL

A five-minute walk from Harrods sits the six-storey 510 sq m mock Tudor town house we’re renovating. We had already refurbished it but were invited back by the new owners to complete some minor decoration works, and the scope quickly developed.

Three years later the house has been completely stripped back, with many of the rooms reconfigured. The ground floor has been opened up into a single space which required a 6m fire curtain for the escape route between the stair well and front door.

The home automation system is elaborate: heating, cooling and audiovisual requirements are fully integrated using Crestron and Lutron controls with custom back boxes and fascia plates. The house has a multi-room AV system with the latest flat panel TVs in principal living spaces and bedrooms, mirror-treatment TVs in bathrooms

Top right and above: Marble from an Italian quarry was used for the basement pool room Above: James LundLack of Red Square

and pool room, a dedicated home cinema, discrete architectural speaker system and universal access to central Sky, Apple TV and other media sources.

Throughout the house sophisticated lighting controls are installed, along with window treatments including control of the motorised blackout blind and curtain window treatments.

Miles of Cat 6 and fibre cabling have been installed to enable the various communication requirements, such as a robust wireless network for smart phones and laptops; wired network for PCs and other fixed devices; whole house phone system providing room to room intercom; and multi-line calling features with high speed fibre-optic broadband service.

Security requests include intruder and fire alarms, video door entry with keyless entry and CCTV whole-house security systems, monitored 24/7 and centrally recorded. The house boasts a swimming pool which has been retiled and the air handling unit moved with new ducting and grills, a heat retention pool cover installed to reduce the amount of power consumed and AHU workload along with a UV unit to cut the chlorine requirement by 50%.

The wall finishes are a mix of madeto-measure bronze mirrors and sculptural Armourcoat wall panels, and for a seamless finish an invisible hanging system has been used from US-based Monarch Fabrication – it took a lot of research to find this solution. With a 2mm tolerance for fitting the wall finishes, and a lengthy wait to have the delivery released from customs, it’s not been the most straightforward process, but we’re very happy with the result.

Tying in with the pool room is a marble floor covering which runs from the front to the back of the basement,

“A marble floor covering runs from the front to the back of the basement, connecting all the rooms and finishing in and around the pool room” James Lund-Lack, Red Square

connecting all the rooms and finishing in and around the pool room.

The marble was sourced from an Italian quarry, with specific slabs reserved. A textured finish was applied for grip, with extra composite reinforcing applied to strengthen the water jet-cut slots bridging the drainage channel below.

All veining had to run in one direction, which means over 50% of the tiles are individual. We allowed for wastage by keeping a reserve of the raw materials at the quarry, ready for production should a spare be needed; needless to say, this contingency was not called upon and the end product is stunning. ● James Lund-Lack MCIOB is general manager of Red Square.

The Knightsbridge town house was stripped back and reconfigured with luxury finishes

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CONSTRUCTION MANAGER | MARCH 2019 COMMUNITY

Partnership Conservation matters

Canterbury tales

HERITAGE EXPERT CONISTON, SPONSOR OF THIS YEAR’S CIOB CONSERVATION CONFERENCE, DISCUSSES ITS WORK Coniston are award-winning heritage construction specialists based in Dartford, Kent. Celebrating our 40th birthday this year, we have a long history of carrying out projects within the conservation sector. Coniston has proudly supported the CIOB conservation conference for a number of years, and once again this year is honoured to be the Platinum Sponsor for the event.

Coniston is a traditional building company, still owned and managed by its founding partner. We also carry a large, skilled in-house workforce, bringing many years of heritage and conservation experience to every project.

We have an enviable client portfolio, working with some of the UK’s most prestigious heritage institutions including the British Museum, Canterbury Cathedral, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Natural History Museum and Somerset House. Coniston is proud of an 80% repeat business rate, testament we believe to the quality of service and workmanship we provide.

The quality of our work has been recognised through the years with a number of awards. Coniston has been recipient of RIBA, RICS, Museums and Heritage, Brick Awards, Building Awards, Construction Manager of the Year Awards and Europe Nostra. ● Coniston is a Chartered Building Company.

Canterbury Cathedral is one of Coniston’s prestigious heritage clients

The CIOB conservation conference, Conservation, Adaptation & Maintenance of the Built Environment, will be held at Church House, Westminster, on 30 April 2019. For full details see http://bit.ly/conservation2019

Coniston are currently carrying out the fiveyear project to restore the roof of Canterbury Cathedral.

The Grade-I listed cathedral is a historic landmark, dating back to 1020 and part of a World Heritage Site.

The cathedral is often described as “England in stone” as its history is intrinsically linked to the country’s history, and it has been a place of worship for more than 1,400 years.

This milestone project involves the installation of a temporary roof over the nave of the cathedral to allow for the removal of the existing roof.

The existing lead that was removed, was recast off-site and reused as part of the new installation.

The existing timbers were subject to specialist repairs using pitch pine, Douglas fir and English oak.

The project is due to be carried out over five years, with a full programme to replace the roof over the nave, adjacent aisles and the roofs over the towers.

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TO ADVERTISE YOUR POSITIONS ON THESE PAGES, CONTACT IAN HARTLEY ON T: 020 7183 1815 ianh@media-shed.co.uk

Introducing the National Legal Consortium Unlimited Construction Law advice for a fixed monthly fee.

The National Legal Consortium provides a completely new approach to legal services by offering unlimited Construction Law advice for an agreed fee, from as little as £150 plus vat per month. lT here are no hourly rates, no monthly bills and no clock watching. lC lients of the National Legal Consortium are entitled to unlimited Construction Law advice: lU nlimited telephone advice service – paid for by the scheme lT aking proceedings on disputes arising after they join the scheme – paid for by the scheme lD efending Claims arising after they join the scheme – paid for by the scheme lU nlimited advice on notices or other issues arising during works – paid for by the scheme

nlimited reviews of Construction Contracts lU and Contract advice – paid for by the scheme lC lients of the National Legal Consortium are entitled to use its logo on their notepaper and website showing that they have access to legal advice in the event of a dispute.

The scheme offers the advantage of a Construction Lawyer on your staff without the salary. We believe that we make an important contribution to the success of our client’s businesses and are proud of the testimonials and case studies at www.nlcuk.net Find out more about the National Legal Consortium, including the costs of the scheme at www.nlcuk.net or call David Jackson on 0800 085 7772

CLASSIFIED

Hundreds of the best jobs in construction.

Recruitment news and insight.

Employers seeking CIOB members.

www.constructionmanagerjobs.co.uk

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BIM+ The UK's best read digital construction resource.

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How digital technologies are creating efficiencies and productivity for firms across the supply chain from designers to contractors and product manufacturers.

A site for anyone working in digital construction from beginners through to experienced practitioners.

Every part of the BIM journey provided by industry experts, software developers and industry bodies.

Project stories and case studies to guide you through BIM adoption.

www.bimplus.co.uk

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TRAINING & RECRUITMENT MARCH 2019 | CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

Training & Recruitment Job spotlight John Egerton Operations director, Mace

VOICE OF EXPERIENCE

PAUL PAINTER

JOHN EGERTON,OPERATIONS DIRECTOR AT MACE, HAS JOINED THE MENTORS INITIATIVE LAUNCHED LAST YEAR BY THE WEST MIDLANDS MAYOR, ANDY STREET

What spurred you to take on the mentor role?

When I reflect on my own career I think about the positive contributions that have led me to where I am, the people who have influenced and guided me with the right advice at the right time. The voice of experience is invaluable to the progression of your career.

Now, I take a keen interest in giving back to an industry that has provided me with so much support and opportunity over the years.

This is what has motivated me to take on a

mentoring role – both internally, within the Mace business, and externally, with initiatives such as the mayor’s mentoring programme.

Did you have to undergo any special training?

What skills does a mentor need?

I haven’t undertaken any formal training. There are training modules out there but I have found the most productive tool has been self-reflection.

Understanding your own journey – the twists, turns and bumps in the road – provides the opportunity to consider what went well, what not so much, and what you’d do differently if you could do it all again. This has helped provide context to the advice I have given; there is no better context than real-life examples.

Understanding your mentee, and being tuned in to their current situation, goals and future ambitions, is essential to ensure that you are pointing them in the right direction.

Finally, creating connections has proven to be of huge value. Unlocking the potential of someone’s career is not just developing them as an individual but putting them in front of the right audience, or people who can help them to realise their career aspirations.

Mace is supportive of the mentor scheme.

What benefits does it bring to the business?

Mentoring has a number of business benefits. We continue to be on a campaign to attract the best talent. By proactively engaging in mentoring schemes we are able to provide the right support and guidance at the time it is needed most. This in turn creates an environment of development for people progressing throughout their careers at Mace, who are then willing to provide this support and guidance to others in return. ●

Hundreds of the best jobs in construction.

Recruitment news and insight. www.constructionmanagerjobs.co.uk

In-depth training benefits everyone Rob Pell, head of construction at Yorkshire-based Priestley Construction, calls for a revolution in skills training and apprenticeships I have worked in the industry for 40 years, so it goes without saying I’ve seen countless challenges – from endless housing shortages to the 2008 recession and now Brexit.

People are the key to meeting these head on. But the onus is on companies to put in the effort to attract talent, impart the necessary skills, and retain the people you’ve invested in.

The CIOB recently reported that 170,000 new recruits are needed by 2021. As a country, we rely heavily on the EU to plug the skills gap; but, with Brexit looming, if the sector doesn’t respond proactively, there’s a strong risk that the gap will widen significantly.

Our apprenticeship schemes need to be radically overhauled. There’s a focus on fasttracking young people through training to get them on site as soon as possible. This misses the point entirely – we end up with a raft of young people who don’t have a broader awareness of how the industry operates day-to-day.

The government is beginning to address this, allocating £22m to more in-depth onsite construction training, but there needs to be a more concerted effort by all.

Passing on practical expertise is not enough – we need to show how sites operate, in terms of contracts and project management, for example. This opens up pathways to further career progression. In short, trainees need to be better empowered.

I recommend a two to three-year scheme, similar to degree education, with onsite training at a single company at its core. This will create continuity and attract higher calibre applicants – our future leaders.

Industry and government need to come together to develop major training programmes that offer young people the first rung of the ladder and show them the view from the top. ●

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Meeting the challenges The challenge is on to ensure that the world has a sustainable future For this our industry can influence the resilience, sustainability and quality of homes, buildings, all elements of infrastructure and cities. Global scientific evidence and strategies like the UN Sustainable Development Goals, are giving a clear message: it is now time to think the unthinkable

#TimeForAction

to make change happen. The ecobuild conference at Futurebuild 2019 will further inform architects and designers, consultants and constructors, and public and private sector clients on how to tackle the industry’s most pressing challenges. From housebuilding to cities, and build quality to leadership, the conference will share insights and learning from industry experts.

Making the commitments 2030 Challenge Construction Leadership Challenge Retrofit Challenge for Housing Circular Economy Challenge Health & Wellbeing Challenge Urban Challenge Environment Challenge Future Practice Challenge Housing Challenge Climate Change Challenge Quality Challenge Challenge to Achieve Real Change Commitment Challenge for the Industry

Get your free three-day ticket to the ecobuild conference at Futurebuild 2019 and join the industry in thinking the unthinkable. www.futurebuild.co.uk/TimeForAction

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