Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

Figure 1 – The design for the R&D Building

Having now been on site for the grand total of two weeks, I thought it was time to post my first blog and explain the project to set the scene for future blogs.

PROJECT OUTLINE

The project I am working on is the construction of a 56,000m² Research and Development (R&D) facility North of London. The build covers two sites, with a main R&D building to the North and an Energy Centre to the South with a public road dissecting the two sites. A 4m wide, 150m long, services tunnel runs under this road, connecting the R&D building to the Energy Centre to provide mechanical and electrical services and data. The road running through the site is an important ‘blue lights’ route for the emergency services and the South Site has a high speed railway running along its Western boundary – both of which create significant environmental challenges and places a number of constraints on the Project. Skanska Construction UK Ltd are the Principle Contractors for the Project.

Figure 2 – The Energy Centre

PROPOSED DESIGN

The R&D Building is a 4 storey reinforced-concrete building comprising a basement level and ground level accommodation, consisting of six glass boxes, supporting a two-floor disc. The disc contains two floor plates and has a staggered vertical façade and saw-tooth roof. Upon the roof there are six small external open plant rooms. The R&D building is still in the construction phase with the majority of the basement concrete pads still to be constructed although work has started on the ground floor with some of the Eastern concrete floor pads being poured.

Figure 3 – Construction of the R&D Building

The Energy Centre is a 3 storey steel frame building traditionally built and enclosed in cladding of different types. It has a lower basement area to only one part of the building and one side of the building is allocated to Facility Management and so includes a number of offices and control rooms. The building has a flat roof which will be used to house some mechanical plant including cooling towers and AHUs. Two large flues will run from the roof to the basement to provide an exhaust for the Cooling Towers, boilers, generators and combined heat and power (CHP) unit. The steel frame for the Energy Centre is still under construction. The tunnel connecting the R&D building to the Energy centre ‘broke through’ last week and so work is underway reinforcing and completing the tunnel walls.

Figure 4 – Construction of the Energy Centre

 CONTRACTURAL ARRANGEMENTS

Due to the well-developed relationship between the Client and the Principal Contractor (Skanska UK), the project is being conducted under a cost plus JCT contract with the client retaining the design and ground risk. I am working for Skanska Rashleigh Weatherfoil (SRW) who are the Building Services arm of Skanska Construction UK Ltd. This means that Skanska UK sub-contracts the building services installation to SRW who in turn manage the building services projects and then contract the installation work out to sub-sub-contracts.   The various mechanical and electrical supply and installation packages are conducted under fixed lump sum contracts.

Figure 5 – The services tunnel linking the Energy Centre to the main R&D Building

SO FAR SO GOOD……

As a project manager in the MEP (Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing) Team for the Energy Centre, I will be involved in both the electrical and mechanical fit out of the Energy Centre and services tunnel which is due to start in Aug 16. Currently I am managing a package to plan, tender and contract out the off-loading, moving and placing of the various plant (boilers, generators, transformers, chillers, large pumpsets, CHP etc) and so I am getting plenty of exposure to the tendering and procurement process. This is proving to be a valuable first role as it means studying all of the technical drawings and developing an understanding of the wider M&E packages – all of which this package will support.

This project is very innovative and is utilising several interesting design features such as a 270m deep ground source heat pumps, a new revolutionary, highly-efficient, baffled cylindrical heating shunts (first time this technology has been used in the UK) and stainless steel rebar to name but a few; and so I already have a few TMR titles in the making!

Gary Jackson