Feel the heat

A request to build speculative offices is not an unusual one from a client. Speculative laboratories, however, are a little more rare. But that's exactly what P&O Developments asked of Harrison Construction when it awarded it the tender to build the Bioincubator building at York Science Park.

P&O is still letting the units, which means that Harrison has to be ready to convert a lab into an office at the last minute, depending on who it is let to. Stephen Jenneson, construction director at Harrison, says building in this level of flexibility hasn't been easy. "We haven't been able to finish the units until the client has let them. This has caused chaos to our schedule. We've had to redo our programme many times and it's been very difficult."

But a close relationship with the client has meant Harrison sticking to its original timescale, incorporating the variations. "We're a handshake company," says Jenneson. "We don't fly in with claims if the project alters. The client has been flexible with us over swapping some of the fit-out works into the base build period and vice versa. We haven't started laying the blame, but tried to accommodate each other. And as we have worked with P&O on other developments on the science park, we have already established a relationship of trust."

Harrison has been on site continually since March 2000, and has completed two other negotiated design and build contracts for P&O. In fact, all Harrison's work is negotiated, so as a tendered contract the Bioincubator was something of a one-off for the company.

As public money was involved in funding the Bioincubator, by way of a contribution from development agency Yorkshire Forward, the contract had to go out to tender, but Harrison proved the most competitive and still retained a strong design input.

We haven’t been able to finish off the units until the client has let them. This has caused chaos to our programme schedule

The Bioincubator provides 45,000 square feet of office space and category 2 and 3 laboratories. P&O intends it to be a step up from the startup units provided at the Innovation Centre next door. Most of the units are already let and many of the companies from the Innovation Centre are moving into the Bioincubator, including pharmaceutical company Ribo Targets, Yorkshire University Chemistry and the National Health Service.

Jenneson rates the biggest challenge on the project as getting the mechanical and electrical services right. Anyone who has followed the saga of Laing's troubled project at the National Physical Laboratory will know how important the specification of the M&E services is when building laboratories. Laing wrote off £70m due to problems with the air conditioning spec. Avoiding such problems is a matter of good teamwork, according to Jenneson.

"We worked very closely on the design with our M&E contractor Hills Electrical and Mechanical and our M&E consultant engineer, WSP Group," he says. "We did not get Hills in until 10 weeks before we needed them, but that 10 weeks was an intensive design period. Of course, we had teething problems but there are no major design flaws in the services."

What was more difficult was fitting in the huge amount of plant needed to run the services into the space allowed, says Jenneson. "The height of the building was very specific. We were very restricted by the planners on this project. It had to be the same height and look as the other buildings around it. So, to provide the maximum space for the labs and offices, we effectively had to fit four storeys' worth of building into a three-storey space."

For maximum space for labs and offices, we effectively had to fit four storeys’ worth of building into a three-storey space

To get round this problem, Harrison put all the services on the top floor, with big risers fitted on the outside of the units. "The plant area had to be carefully planned so all the services could fit in there and it could still be easily maintained," says Jenneson. "We fitted the risers outside the internal walls so they didn't go through somebody else's working areas and reduce the size of the units."

Putting all the plant on the same floor also helped achieve the kind of flexibility that P&O was looking for. "There is built-in flexibility in the units because there are no services in them. That way, we could build most of the unit and then only had to wait until we knew from the client what it was going to be used for to put the suspended ceiling in which doesn't take long, and laboratory gases if required."

Although the design of the exterior was out of Harrison's hands due to planning constraints, the company did its best to save money for the client by looking closely at the specification for the rest of the building.

"We did a value engineering exercise on every element in the building we could touch," says Jenneson. "For example, we planned the ductwork carefully to avoid any clashes. This meant there was no need for re-work or secondary steelwork to hold it up. It's not rocket science what we're doing, but it's most cost-effective getting it right first time and that is what we have strived to do. With public money involved and this being a management contract, we've always had to keep the cost in mind."

Harrison is already in negotiations with P&O to design and build more offices at the science park, which will see in its third year there. That is some achievement when the competition from other local contractors to get onto one of York's most prestigious developments is so strong.