Our Experience
St Michael's Hospital
These works involved the construction of a new community hospital, on two floors, comprising eight specialist departments, administration, catering, support services and intermediate care wards to serve the local community.
The brief
The scheme was another PFI project for the Grosvenor House Group, to be constructed in the grounds of an existing hospital where facilities were being upgraded and changed generally to provide clinical services for the 21st Century.
What we did
The building is of a traditional construction with concrete foundations, steel frame with concrete floors, masonry and clad elevations, with flat roofs and hardwearing and robust internal finishes. Much attention has been paid to both the longevity and the clinical need of the fittings and installations to ensure a low maintenance and workable building was constructed within the time constraints.
Runwell Health Facility
This contract was for the new design and build of a 98 bed forensic mental health facility unit with accompanying administration and sports facilities.
The brief
The facilities were split into 5 main functions; medium secure slow stream, medium secure acute admissions, medium secure fast stream, low secure unit and female unit.
What we did
The external treatment of the buildings was a mixture of brickwork, rendered blockwork and large timber cladding. The roofs incorporated conventional roof tiles and 'Rheinzink' metal roofing.
Each separate building has a secure external area for patient use with additional secure landscaped areas to enhance the patient environment.
The first floor therapies section includes creative and educational workshops to encourage patient participation and where multi faith areas have been accommodated.
The Facilities Management/Therapies Building is on 2 levels with a cafeteria and catering facilities on the ground floor. A separate 3 level building is for patient welfare/administration.
The result
Works commenced on this 'green field' site after we had constructed our own temporary haul road to feed the development thereby minimising the traffic effects on the local residents.
Tufnell Park
This was our second project for Opal Property Group for student accommodation named Opal 4, the end user is London Metropolitan University. The contract value was £27m.
The brief
Tufnell
What we did
Access to the site was via a densely populated residential road which meant the site had to maintain both a clean and courteous relationship with the local residents. Due to the importance of maintaining this relationship we negotiated with the local authority to undertake some minor civils works to an adjacent road to allow all vehicles to access the site from another direction and therefore interaction with the residents was kept to a minimum.
Due to the tight programme it was important to commence and complete the 145 studios in the refurbishment building as early as possible therefore reducing the strain of completing 700 units down to 550 units. To achieve this we had to install the site entrance road very early in the construction to achieve a suitable surface to allow the 2500 pre-cast units to be delivered, off loaded and installed whilst still achieving access for deliveries to the refurbishement building.
Due to the site layout and the adjacent houses on two sides of the site, a recreational park to another and a 6m high retaining wall to the other, the choice by us to install two tower cranes proved to be a vital logistical installation which allowed materials to be loaded out immediately after they have been off loaded and therefore maximise the ability of using the various flat roof areas for storage of materials.
The result
The methods we used proved to be very successful as the structure to the new build finished some three weeks ahead of programme.
Pitfield Street
This project is for Opal Property Group hence the building's name Opal 1. The contract value is £21m.The footprint of the new building occupied 100 % of the site area.
The brief
The contract was for the design and construction of an eight storey block of 512 no. student rooms together with external works and drainage.
The challenge was to find a way of constructing the new building which included piled foundations, a basement and a pre-cast concrete frame within a tight 69 week programme. The building fronted onto a busy street in central
What we did
In liaison with the Council and the relevant agencies we were able to relocate street lighting and the bus stop on a temporary arrangement. 2 Luffing type tower cranes were positioned in close proximity to each other in a central courtyard. Agreement was reached with the Council to rent the footpath temporarily, this was used as a drive in/drive out layby for deliveries, existing services within the highway footpath were protected under a temporary concrete slab.
Consultations were held with the local residents and agreement was reached to rent a parcel of land at the back of the new build for the site set up and for material storage. The basement was utilized for sub-contractor site facilities as soon as it was available.
The result
The building was constructed and handed over to Opal 4 weeks ahead of programme.
