Fit out under £3 million

Gold

Noises off on Silk Street

For this fit-out project the client, Linklaters, required contractor Spectrum to undertake a complete fit out of the 10th, 11th, and 12th floors of Milton House, Silk St, London over a 10 week period. All floors were to run concurrently and complete simultaneously. As the building was fully occupied, there were no noisy works allowed between 08.30am and 8pm Mondays to Fridays. Although these restrictions were lifted at weekends, allowances had to be made for the occupants and visitors to the Barbican, which is adjacent to this project. To overcome this, Mark Carter incorporated noisy works regime early in the morning, having won the agreement of the client and the Barbican Residents Association. All noisy works were carried out between 5am and 8.30am Monday to Friday, with 10am to 2pm the allocation at weekends. Carter screened off the areas that housed the noisy work. He did not receive one complaint. To ensure a defect-free handover, the quality control process began with the appointment of subcontractors. Carter chaired all subcontractor appointments and ensured that they fully understood their obligations and had quality procedures in place. Carter’s system ensured all defects were amended prior to handover. Carter held weekly project meetings attended by all members of the team, each meeting focusing on the up-to-date project status review. He produced a project report detailing how the works were progressing on a floor by floor basis. Spectrum have an exemplary health and safety record - one that Carter strived to improve upon. He arranged for weekly site inspections, by external inspectors, and after each site visit, a written report was issued and these were appended to Carter’s own project reports. Carter developed an excellent relationship with the client through a series of workshops, which he arranged during the early stage of the project. These workshops enabled everybody to fully understand both the design of the project and the client requirements, and helped Carter deliver a snag-free project.

Silver

Aussie rules the roost

Betissa Ryan is an Australian who has recently completed a BSc in Construction Management in Sydney. Having established her career in Australia, she moved to the UK to work for Bovis Lend Lease. Bovis had recently negotiated a contract with WJB Chiltern, a tax and commercial wealth management company who had acquired four floors of approximately 50,000 sq ft of office space at Paddington Central. Ryan headed up the Bovis Lend Lease team as project manager, supported by other members of Bovis Lend Lease. The open-book nature of the cost planning process and involvement of the architectural and M&E consultants in this meant that Ryan could establish a cooperative team environment with an open constructive communication early on. She achieved her targets through a series of design meetings with the client and consultants followed by workshops with the consultants and contractors. At set points, concept design, detail design and workshop drawings were presented to the client by the project team, and signed off before proceeding to the next stage of the project. Despite the complex nature of the site, Ryan was able to continue this cooperative trend with the building management team, security maintenance staff, base build team and other contractors working in the building. It was essential that this commercial fit out was complete by the contract date. Due to Ryan’s consistently excellent management skills the project was completed on time and to the high expectations of the client. It also helped establish her reputation in the UK.

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