Northern lights

Durham is a Norman city, famous for its cathedral and castle, which date from the turn of the last millennium. It is littered with centuries-old buildings and cobbled streets – big competition for any new facility. But a development reaching completion just north of the city centre is successfully overcoming these and more practical barriers to bring a new range of entertainment to the north-east.

The Durham City Millennium Project comprises two buildings. The largest plays host to the 600-seat Gala Theatre, function and conference suites, and a tourist information centre, which includes a 120-seat Imax cinema. Also included are some council offices – classed as a separate building, but physically part of the overall structure. The second building houses more council offices and a library.

The buildings flank a central courtyard paved in York Stone and form the boundary of the site, which sits in a built-up area at the top of a steep embankment overlooking the River Wear. The choice of site provides spectacular views for visitors; but with the views came problems.

The scheme is described by m&e contractor NG Bailey as a typical inner-city project. "There's no parking areas, no offloading facilities and storage space is very small," explains senior supervisor Len Brown. A relatively narrow, steep road leads to the site from the city centre, from this there are two access points: directly into the courtyard and via a single-lane entrance to a service yard.

Two measures were taken to counter any local traffic problems this may cause: deliveries were scheduled to arrive before businesses opened, and the goods were removed as quickly as possible by forklift trucks and physical handling. From here, deliveries were taken straight to the area they were destined for which, although not always convenient, gave the advantage of single handling of goods.

Access from the embankment side of the site was dependent on the goodwill of the neighbouring landowners who gave permission to park the cranes needed to lift the services plant into the building through a two-metre deep slot in the wall.

A just-in-time delivery system was set up to counter the storage problem. But it was not only construction materials that lacked space, there was little room for on-site staff facilities.

Drying areas were shared between the different construction teams and it was not possible to make offices in traditional site cabins. Instead, improvisation and flexibility were needed. For the majority of the job the NG Bailey project team worked from an area under the main theatre stage, before moving to a daylit area in the later stages of the project. Employees arrived on site in protective equipment, reducing the need for changing areas, and parked off site.

Artistic services
"The sheer amount of services and lack of space," explains project manager Terry Collins, "were big factors in this project." The development has seven plantrooms of varying sizes, and the plant is tightly packed into the low-roofed rooms. The number of plantrooms is partly due to the division of the site into five zones, but also because a different council will use each building's offices so these had to be individually served.

A limited amount of off-site prefabrication was used, mainly for the sprinkler system. On site a "production line" assembled valves and headers for the plantrooms."The rest of the job hasn't leant itself to prefabrication," explained Collins, "It's a case of making things fit."

The Gala Theatre forms the biggest part of the services contract. It is served mechanically from a remote boilerhouse and three main plantrooms. The vast majority of the project is served by air conditioning and ventilation is mainly by displacement. This was chosen to keep to the strict noise levels allowed and to ensure an even spread of air.

The stalls area in the Gala Theatre auditorium has been created on a series of wagons. When the room is being used as a theatre, these seat-covered wagons are positioned in the main floor area as in a traditional theatre. To allow for maximum use, the room can be converted into a flat floor for dinners, etc by removing the wagons to an understage storage area – air blowers attached to the underside of the units enable them to act as hovercrafts for ease of movement. Two air supply options have been installed in the auditorium to cater for these different functions.

The use of standby generators has been avoided by connection to two electricity supplies: one from a 1 MVA substation constructed adjacent to the main building; the second a mains supply. Although these have been in place since March 2001, legal problems over the ownership of land meant that the supply was not connected until 22 August. This has further complicated project planning as commissioning could not be started until the supply was live. A temporary supply was also needed to carry out works. This will be removed on completion of the project.

  As the main plantroom is sited directly under the auditorium, all pipework is suspended on anti-vibration mountings to comply with the stringent noise levels imposed. This criteria also meant that all penetrations through a critical set of walls had to include special acoustic treatment and details such as sleeving.

This is an area which, unusually, affected the m&e contractor. As part of the contract NG Bailey was required to complete walls around ductwork etc after installing the services. This involved the use of plasterboard and different detailing depending on the fire and acoustic ratings.

Art of project management
When members of a construction team can describe a project as having been "a different challenge every day" in the same conversation as expressing their fondness for the job, it's plain that something has worked, even if the project has not gone exactly to the original plans.

  One of the main problems from a project management perspective was ongoing alterations to the project design brief. "The building went up in the opposite way that it was originally meant to from the planning stage," explained Collins, "due to problems with the steelwork." This meant that project management plans had to be rewritten and there was no long lead-in period.

Design changes did not stop there, so details such as just-in-time deliveries had to be constantly reviewed to ensure they would actually be arriving when needed. Perhaps more vital was the close working between the project teams.

Meetings were held with the design team at fortnightly intervals and conditions were placed on subcontractors to ensure their flexibility around the project changes and programme. "The majority of the subcontractors that we have are user-friendly," stressed Collins, "and we always dealt with any time problems in a manner that doesn't mean relying on contract conditions so that we can keep a friendly relationship.

"One of the things that worked to everybody's advantage is that the construction manager is a friend of our team," explained Collins, who together with the electrical project engineer Ken Ormerod, had recently worked with him on another project. "That was a big advantage because we knew him and he knew how we operated. The relationship was there from the start," he adds.

"One of the good things we had all the way through is our relationship with all the construction team and the design team. There's a lot of friendships been built-up and that has helped in getting things done when the plans have been changing so much."