PFI

Gold

Name
Victor Richardson MCIOB
Company
Bovis Lend Lease
Project
15,800m² hospital extension. Hexham General, Northumbria
Contract
£27m, bespoke D&B, 104 weeks

On completion of this project, the architect installed his signature – a grand piano – in the hospital reception area, but credit for the project being so harmonious must go to Victor Richardson. It took an enormous amount of negotiation to get all parties to this contract to agree programmes. Richardson motivated and convinced the Bovis team that the aims were achievable, and then set about gaining the trust and co-operation of the key players. All consultants, subcontractors and specialists were contracted to Bovis and subsequently came under Richardson.

Richardson’s challenge was to build an extension to Hexham Hospital on a brownfield site immediately adjacent to the existing facility without interfering in any way in the day-to-day running of the working hospital. With the hospital’s boiler house and mortuary located less than five metres from the construction works, and the existing hospital having to remain antiseptically clean at all times, Richardson had to contend with the severest restrictions imaginable for noise, dust and dirt and organise an almost obsessively clean and tidy site.

But what really kept relationships sweet was a variant of what can be called the ‘Mars Bar’ strategy, in honour of a previous CMYA medallist, who used to arrive on site every morning with a carton of Mars bars and proceed to hand out one to every single person he met. At Hexham, Richardson made it his business to get on first-name terms with the hospital staff. He knew all the sisters and nurses and kept up a constant charm offensive.

The hospital was designed as a quality, comfortable and friendly environment for patients. It was vital that quality did not suffer as a result of the fast-track construction methods, so Richardson set up a rigorous quality check-in process, jointly inspecting the progress of work with the client.

Good planning, good programming, good housekeeping and good relationships gave Richardson all the leverage he needed to complete a tough job.

Silver

Name
Bob Williams
Company
Wates Construction
Project
School refurb and new work-shops. Bishopsford School, London
Contract
£5.3m, bespoke PFI, 48 weeks

When you’re carrying out major building works in a functioning school, you need inexhaustible supplies of tact, diplomacy, awareness and willingness to respond. You need, in fact, Bob Williams.

Williams constantly and carefully considered the needs of Bishopsford School, employing construction methods and programming works that would minimise the impact of construction on the school. With only one access road into the school to be shared by construction vehicles, site workers, schoolchildren, teachers and parents, Williams decided to prohibit the movement of materials and plant in and out at playtimes, lunch breaks and the start and end of the school day.

As well as putting in a new service road, which he donated to the school, Williams installed barrier protection to separate pedestrians from the road traffic. The school was so pleased with its effectiveness that it bought it off him at the end of the project.

As ever with a project that impacts so fundamentally on an operational facility, winning the interest and enthusiasm of those affected is the key to a good client relationship and was of particular importance on a site with plenty of potential for vandalism.

Williams did this first of all by getting the head and teaching staff on board. He discussed the project’s environmental issues with the school, explaining, for example, how much cheaper the new workshops would be to heat compared with the older blocks. The school responded by using the construction works as a real-world example in science lessons. Williams then won over the children themselves with a range of initiatives, including brick signings and burying time capsules under the new workshops.

Williams also cemented relationships with the site consultant by holding fortnightly design meetings on site to let project architects, structural engineers and other professionals walk around and see how the design was progressing and working.

Commended

Geoff Hunt Costain, Mark Townley Skanska Integrated Projects