At first It was like the battle of the Somme

The old haunt

The team are to meet up in the pub they spent most of the late 1990s drinking in: the Pilot Inn, pictured below. Located just a few hundred yards from the Dome itself in north Greenwich, the pub was to be demolished under the initial proposals for the development. Fortunately for a team made thirsty by the 12-hour working days, it survived and became their social centre.

The team, which included architects from the Richard Rogers Partnership, engineers from Buro Happold and builders from Sir Robert McAlpine, forged a strong bond. David Trench, the client’s development director, decided that the whole project team had to work on site – even Richard Rogers could regularly be seen in Greenwich, at the opposite end of London from his swanky Hammersmith abode.

One of the unique aspects about working in the construction industry is the way teams are thrown together and then work intensively over a short period of time – on the Dome, people were working for at least 12 hours a day before going out for dinner and drinks with their colleagues. At the end of the project the team disbands and, although future collaborations are likely, the exact combination of personalities and skills will never be recreated. So it’s hardly surprising that people get nostalgic over projects they worked on – and with nostalgia comes the reunion …

The first to arrive at the Pilot are Peter English, who worked on the Dome’s infrastructure, Doreen Andrews who was personal assistant to Trench, Buro Happold partner Paul Westbury and the Dome’s services and fit-out man Richard Coffey.

Building gets the beers in and the evening kicks off with English revealing an example of the competitive nature of PY Gerbeau, the Frenchman who took over the running of the Dome during its exhibition run in February 2000: “PY’s a good golfer. He went round Wentworth in two over par. He was far too good for Trench …” The team are to meet up in the pub they spent most of the late 1990s drinking in: the Pilot Inn, pictured below. Located just a few hundred yards from the Dome itself in north Greenwich, the pub was to be demolished under the initial proposals for the development. Fortunately for a team made thirsty by the 12-hour working days, it survived and became their social centre.

The team, which included architects from the Richard Rogers Partnership, engineers from Buro Happold and builders from Sir Robert McAlpine, forged a strong bond. David Trench, the client’s development director, decided that the whole project team had to work on site – even Richard Rogers could regularly be seen in Greenwich, at the opposite end of London from his swanky Hammersmith abode.

One of the unique aspects about working in the construction industry is the way teams are thrown together and then work intensively over a short period of time – on the Dome, people were working for at least 12 hours a day before going out for dinner and drinks with their colleagues. At the end of the project the team disbands and, although future collaborations are likely, the exact combination of personalities and skills will never be recreated. So it’s hardly surprising that people get nostalgic over projects they worked on – and with nostalgia comes the reunion …

The first to arrive at the Pilot are Peter English, who worked on the Dome’s infrastructure, Doreen Andrews who was personal assistant to Trench, Buro Happold partner Paul Westbury and the Dome’s services and fit-out man Richard Coffey.

Building gets the beers in and the evening kicks off with English revealing an example of the competitive nature of PY Gerbeau, the Frenchman who took over the running of the Dome during its exhibition run in February 2000: “PY’s a good golfer. He went round Wentworth in two over par. He was far too good for Trench …”

1 Name Andrew Morris
What did you do? I was in a support role on the Dome for the Richard Rogers Partnership’s team of 15 people. I’m still at RRP.
Age 54
How do you remember it? The Dome had a great advantage in that the time factor couldn’t move. So there was a strong integration of the architectural team and the trade contractors. It worked marvellously, and this is the great untold story.

2 Name Peter English
What did you do? Now retired, I worked on the infrastructure and base build for the client, the New Millennium Experience Company
Age 67
How do you remember it? A lot of very important decisions were taken very quickly at the Dome. Those masts – the big yellow things sticking up from the Dome. I was presented with some options for the masts, I said I liked that one, fully expecting someone to say “Why?” but nobody ever asked.

3 Name Mike Davies
What did you do? Dome architect, still a director at the Richard Rogers Partnership.
Age 63
How do you remember it? Our design was a specific response to the site. Shelter was the key driver, because it was so bloody cold, with winds blowing off the river. Then we chose a round shape, because it was the only thing to sit comfortable on the bend in the river.

4 Name Glyn Trippick
What did you do? I was project director for Buro Happold’s team of structural and services engineers from 1997 on. I’m still with the company.
How do you remember it? Buro Happold is back on the Dome project and working for the American developer, Anschutz. An arena, a music club for 2000 people, a cinema, and 20 pubs and restaurants are all being built within it. It’s just like any other town centre, except that the Dome has the benefit of keeping the wind and rain off the punters.

5 Name Richard Coffey
What did you do? I worked for NMEC between 1997-2000, running the services and fit-out.
Age 57
How do you remember it? I remember talking to some of the potential exhibition contractors asking them what sort of services they needed. Some were very knowledgeable, but one said: “Well, we will need some 13 amp socket outlets.”

The big cheese

The biggest cheer of the night is reserved for when the grande dame of the project, Jennie Page, walks into the pub. Noted for her forceful personality, she proved the doubters wrong by getting the Dome built on time, having been appointed chief executive of the New Millennium Experience Company in 1996. However, the shine was taken off her achievement when she resigned in February 2000, taking the blame for the low visitor numbers during the first month of the year.

Things haven’t got easier for Page. She was one of 15 former directors at Equitable Life that the company tried to sue for negligence after the group nearly collapsed in 2000. However, in the hours prior to this reunion it emerged that Equitable had decided to drop the charges against two of the directors and offered to do the same for the other 13, including Page, if they paid their own legal costs. Some observers say that this signals the beginning of the end of the dispute.

Unsurprisingly, her former colleagues were excited for her. “She’s winning,” shouted Trench, clad in a leather jacket, while the Dome’s architect, Mike Davies, enveloped her in a massive hug.

As her career has stuttered, so Page has moved on in other areas of her life. She holds a National Union of Students card, having taken up a degree in theology at King’s College, London. The course is part-time and lasts until 2010. When she’s not drinking in the Students’ Union bar – “Although I don’t go there as often as I’d like,” she says - Page can often be found kick-boxing, at which she claims to be a better student at than theology.

Tonight she is the star attraction, and within a few minutes of her arrival at least three people have offered to get her a drink.

6 Name Tanya Ross
What did you do? I was the design manager for Buro Happold, where I still am today. And hey, I’m a columnist in Building.
Age 39 (that’s going backwards soon, though)
How do you remember it? Michael Grade [chairman of the Millennium Experience Creative Review Group and former Channel 4 supremo] was often in the Pilot propping up the bar. I’ve been looking for a job that’s as stimulating as the Dome ever since.

7 Name Jennie Page
What did you do? Chief executive of the NMEC
Age 61
How do you remember it? It’s just good to see so many of the boys again – there aren’t so many of the girls. We were a hugely close, multidisciplinary action.

Unlikely pals

How often do client and contractor end up fighting? Not these two. David Trench and Bernard Ainsworth sat on opposite sides of the fence but as this conversation taken from the evening shows, they came out of the project as good mates, laughing away at some of the Dome’s quirkier stories …

Bernard Ainsworth Me and David didn’t always see eye-to-eye, so the first thing we did each day …

David Trench [interrupting] … was at 7am have a cup of tea!

Bernard If he was grumpy I’d know. If I was, I had to tell him, because he never noticed. You did write to me once to complain. You didn’t think I was finishing it all quickly enough.

David I probably said anyone can start anything, it’s harder to finish it.

Bernard It was good that he didn’t really ever write, otherwise you start a tennis match where you end up writing back. Then, you’re f****d.

David The incident I remember is when a ceiling came down before a press conference. Blair was coming in, but the ceiling had been sprayed so it was wet – the subbie hadn’t worked out how much wet load it could take. We walked in that morning and there it was.

Bernard All over the floor.

David The subcontractor was broke. What were we going to do? I said to Bernard we should tell them that if they got the ceiling up a second time we’d pay them twice.

Bernard And he did it!

David They got about £40,000. There was no point killing the guy.

Bernard [shaking his head] No point.

8 Name Bernard Ainsworth
What did you do? I was the project director for the McAlpine–Laing joint venture. After 34 years with Laing, I’m now at Atkins.
Age 58
How do you remember it? It’s the camaraderie I remember. And the Pilot, of course.

9 Name David Trench
What did you do? Development director for the client. Now (semi) retired.
Age 63
How do you remember it? We feared that the exhibition wouldn’t be ready. For six months the structure was up with nothing to put in there.

The beer kicks in …

The partygoers start forming tightly packed coteries as they order in the next bottle of wine or the latest pint of beer. The Buro Happold lot start getting misty-eyed. They repeat how working on the Dome was like living in a hall of residence and how so many of them got fat because of the work-eat-drink-sleep lifestyle. It’s unsurprising that the engineers have the most reminiscences, as they lived by the site for four years, until the Dome was decommissioned in 2001.

Someone comes up with a new analogy: “It was like being at the battle of the Somme at first. Initially, there was just the one hut for us to stay in. We felt like troops stuck in the frontline, the wind whistling over the Thames estuary.” Everyone nods in agreement.

The all-against-the-world attitude gets more prevalent, and several people make the point that despite the criticisms of the Dome, which was accused of being a white elephant, nobody could deny it was a feat of engineering and architecture. Mike Davies also points out nobody in government knew what they wanted from the Dome at first: “There wasn’t any brief that they could specify. It’s central focus was as a concept.”

Davies is one of many who names Michael Heseltine, the former Conservative deputy prime minister, later appointed by Tony Blair to push forward the project, as “an anchor”. Davies, resplendent in the all-over red clothing for which he is renowned, continues: “He believed in the development of east London. He agreed this was above politics.”

An unexpected guest

A key player wasn’t expected to arrive – the works director for Sir Robert McAlpine, Rolv Kristiansen. He had been on holiday when Building set up this reunion and wasn’t back at work until the day of the event. Grant McGregor said he would try and drag him out of the office, but the assembly has its doubts. And yet he turns up, as large as life and with the drinking capacity of a yak.

A Norwegian, Kristiansen soon recounts how he hunted polar bears in his youth. Many of those that he regales with this story seem unconvinced, but are captivated nonetheless.

Kristiansen is one of many in attendance who are now working on the Arsenal stadium project, where he is project director. Others include McGregor and Buro Happold’s Paul Westbury.

Richard Coffey points out that this is one of the features of the Dome, how so many of them have gone to work on just a few, major schemes. “There are only so many people who can deliver big projects," he says.

For Coffey, this means Ascot. The £185m redevelopment of the racecourse’s grandstand has been troubled by persistent rumours that it will not open on time. It is only last week, eight days after the reunion, that the client announced that it would be delivered on time and on budget. However, Trench has been one casualty, having been project director until he left earlier this year citing disagreements with the client. However he insists that compared with the Dome, “Ascot’s a doddle”. Others at Ascot include Doreen Andrews, who was personal assistant to Trench at the Dome and is now PA to his successor at the racecourse. Tonight she is drinking red wine and praising her former boss’ ”even temper”.

10 Name Rolv Kristiansen
What did you do? I was construction director for Sir Robert McAlpine. Today I work for the company on the Arsenal stadium project.
Age 42, again!
How do you remember it? People forget but we managed to build it on time and on budget. The deadline concentrated the mind. There was nowhere for people to run and hide. It was disappointing inside. It was the wrong view of what they wanted it to be.

11 Name Grant McGregor
What did you do? Dome commercial manager for Sir Robert McAlpine.
Age 49
How do you remember it? It’s a very misunderstood project and there’s still a very negative attitude towards it. As project manager, David Trench set up a pain-and-gain scenario, in which we were penalised on time and cost overruns but we were offered a bonus if we brought it in under budget. In the end we brought the project in tens of millions under budget.

Into the night …

Several of the guests go, but sensing that some of the others are about to drink well into the night, Building decides to make its own excuses and leave the old chums to it.

Other attendees enjoying the celebrations included:

Name Doreen Andrews
What did you do? Personal assistant to David Trench on the Dome
Age Not telling
How do you remember it? I loved working for David because what you see is what you get.

Name Peter Taylor
What did you do? I was involved with decommissioning and construction of exhibits for the Laing–McAlpine joint venture.
Age 43
How do you remember it? We sold a lot of the insides to Gillingham FC. Chairman Paul Scally bought fire alarms, PA systems, turnstyles.

Name Ian Guest
What did you do? Led the mechanical team for Buro Happold.
Age 41
How do you remember it? We lived up here like students, but actually had the money to enjoy it.

Name Ian Liddell
What did you do? Partner at Buro Happold
Age 67
How do you remember it? What was great was that things got sorted out without people getting stressed.

Name Caren Cummings
What did you do? I was personal assistant to Peter English and Richard Coffey, but now I work for the Dome’s landlord, English Partnerships.
Age 41
How do you remember it? Watching the Dome come out of nothing was fabulous. Everyone you talk to locally will agree it’s a great project.