Name: Sam Barker MCIOB
Employer: Willmott Dixon Construction
Project: University Campus Suffolk Phase 1 “The Waterfront Building”
Contract: GC/Works 1
When Sam Barker moved house so he could be nearer site, it was merely another demonstration of his commitment to this project. And it was a project that undeniably needed a great deal of construction management input.
England’s newest university wanted a striking centrepiece to set the visual tone of its campus, so Sam faced a stiff technical challenge. Three-quarters of the building was curved, and the seven-storey front elevation sloped down to two storeys at the rear. It also had to be built in an industry-leading timescale of 30 months from inception to delivery, which meant a rocket-fuelled programme for a scheme of this size and complexity.
The project suffered its first major knock at preconstruction, when the bubbledeck concrete frame had to be abandoned because it couldn’t be quality-assured. Sam found an excellent alternative in a post-tensioned concrete frame, which delivered the same benefits of long spans, fewer columns and more open and flexible space.
However, the new frame meant an envelope redesign. While the redesign cut £350k off costs it also delayed the site start by 11 weeks. But with the building needed for the new student intake, the handover date could not be compromised.
It took all of Sam’s construction expertise and undivided attention to claw this back. He reprogrammed, came up with innovative solutions and restructured his team.
High winds off the Orwell estuary then compounded the delay late in the scheme by bringing work to a halt. Proactive and pragmatic in his problem solving, Sam rethought his delivery strategy. By handing over in time for the new term the areas that students needed to access, he funnelled the delay to non-critical parts of the building.
It was a major achievement and rightly delighted the client, aware of just how close to disaster it had been brought by the whistle-stop timescale, unforeseen events, building complexity and tight budget. Sam had also delivered the finances by value engineering £1.8m off the project costs without affecting the original design concept.
Value: £22.6m