Name: Allen Marshall ICIOB
Employer: Miller Homes East Midlands
Project: Centro West, Derby
Contract: Design & build
Allen Marshall sets his sights on running a perfect site, and consistently took personal responsibility for making this scheme a success.
For Allen, all construction processes matter, whether or not the output is visible. During the piling, for example, on noticing the arisings from one of the continuous flight piles were of a different consistency than the rest and suspecting an unsound pile, he asked the subcontractor to put in an extra pile with a large cap. His decision was vindicated a few days later when the original pile failed its integrity test, but the project was not adversely affected because he had already addressed the issue.
Then, at one of the first project team meetings, where products, materials and buildability were being discussed, Allen noticed that the walk-out balconies would not be fully secured until the brickwork above them had been laid and cured. He pointed out that fixing a small bolt on plates to the rear would make the balconies safer to build and quicker to install.
He also found a financially and structurally viable solution to the problem of a required flood prevention wall on one of the boundaries given that the existing partial wall was not thought stable enough to withstand the planned car park. Allen designed a cost-effective way to strengthen the existing wall without affecting the water course alongside it.
As well as these individual personal contributions, Allen controlled the project with flair. Bounded by busy roads, the site was extremely tight: it had just enough space to store one load of blocks and another of bricks at any one time. Given the site was using four loads of blocks of varying strength a week and two loads of bricks, Allen’s smooth scheduling of materials proved crucial to success.
Committed to teamwork and constantly striving for high standards, Allen also pulled off the feat of achieving zero defects at handover.