Name: Mark Johnson MCIOB
Employer: Mace Ltd
Project: T S Eliot Annexe, London Library, London W1
Contract: Construction management
A talented and dedicated construction manager with an exceptional attitude to the job and the relationships needed for success, Mark Johnson turned his client’s well-founded worries about this project into an equally justifiable delight at the result.
Another project was just completing in the same square, which had brought massive disruption to the area, and the client was apprehensive about the neighbours’ reaction to another building site in their midst. But Mark handled it beautifully. He persuaded the client to hold off site start until the adjacent project had fully completed, and made a point of communicating with the neighbours, going beyond the call of duty to establish good relations with them.
The client dreaded a repetition of two previous construction projects, which had both exposed the library’s most valuable yet fragile asset, its books, to clouds of brick dust and rubble when the seals screening off the work areas broke down. But Mark connected the building being converted and the client’s adjoining Grade II-listed building with absolutely no contamination of the book stacks from the working areas.
Just as crucial for the client, which had raised all its construction finance from charitable donors, was to remain within the budget. This was no easy task. The three M&E tenders, for example, were all double the cost plan figure, and it took all Mark’s powers of negotiation and value-engineering to bring the cost down.
Other value successes included reusing the existing grid ceiling lights and maintaining the existing basement sump. But even more fundamental to the project coming in £140,000 under budget was the cost consultant’s acceptance of Mark’s open book strategy and collaboration on delivering savings.
By seeking solutions and refusing to make a drama out of a crisis, Mark minimised all difficulties. His determination to avoid hierarchical mentalities and lead a team rather than be a team leader delivered the building that the client wanted. More importantly, he delivered it in a way that the client had never imagined could be achieved.