Name: Paul Nix
Employer: Bovis Lend Lease
Project: St David's Centre, Cardiff
Contract: JCT 1998
A complex mix of demolition and reconstruction, remodelling, refurb and renewal, this project made massive demands of Paul Nix.
It wasn’t merely the scale of this scheme that was so fearsome. The shopping centre would not only continue to trade fully as works progressed, but Paul also had to ensure that customers remained blithely unaware that they were doing their shopping or visiting the theatre on a major construction site.
On a project where process was as important as final product, Paul was phenomenal. With a single site access and minimal storage areas, his logistics planning was the key.
He set up an offsite handling facility that received all supplies. A dedicated team delivered those supplies daily (and nightly) to the workfaces, and cleared everything away before the centre opened next day.
Paul changed the structural frame to steel to speed up the programme. He also decided to build the atrium frame onsite and lift it in one night operation, which accelerated construction and meant no closure of the mall below.
He separated the works from the shops with a constantly moving block-built hoarding. He carried out demolition out of hours or at quiet times for adjacent shops. He installed isolation trenches in the ground floor slabs to minimise vibration transfer across the mall. He redesigned pile layouts to reduce disruptive break-outs. And he removed the existing ‘tulip tree’ (a concrete structure with a 45-tonne roof slab) by installing a waterproof crash deck below, supporting the structure and cutting it into manageable pieces for removal in one night operation.
Value: £41.8m