Name: Hugh Taylor
Employer: Bovis Lend Lease
Project: The Royal Academy of Arts, Gallery 8 Project, Piccadilly, London
Contract: JCT
Having spent five years working for a structural steelwork specialist, Hugh Taylor offered the safe pair of hands that this structurally intricate project required.
The contract was to refurbish the upper two floors of a listed building as offices, install a pair of five-storey passenger lifts, and reinstate the fire-wrecked roof. It required the insertion of new sections of floor, installation of large-span steel trusses, stabilisation of excavations for the new lift pit, and the reduction of existing brickwork walls to make space for the lift shaft formation. The whole job was made far more fraught by the continuing operation of an art gallery below, with its public display of paintings worth millions.
Hugh completely understood the complexities of the design. He tactfully managed the tensions in the professional team generated by differing views on the best way to insert the new within the existing fabric. He pulled the team together with weekly design workshops and monthly progress meetings.
He managed the huge risks with aplomb. Rather than underpinning the piers of the 800mm-thick brickwork walls as the 3m excavation of the lift pit proceeded, he proposed high-pressure grouting to stabilise the ground. The initiative greatly reduced time and cost, and eliminated the dangers of working 1.5m under the walls.
And he replaced with a waterproof deck the temporary roof that was preventing the installation of the roof steelwork. Construction progressed above the deck while art enthusiasts milled around the gallery below. Hugh’s innovation of shared scaffold and access saved time and money, while work was completed accurately and safely.
Value: £6.2m