Name: Alan George MCIOB
Employer: Geoffrey Osborne
Project: Hackney Service Centre, London Borough of Hackney
Contract: GC Works 1
Alan George’s wealth of experience, clear management approach, drive and motivation skills won the contract award for this landmark scheme.
His ambition was plain. He cut the construction programme from 104 to 93 weeks. He made the time to understand every element of the project, deploying his experience to great effect. And he worked closely with the design team to find the right solutions – the value-engineering list approved by the client was filled with his innovations.
Alan pulled off the signal feat of delivering a signature design with a strictly limited budget. He managed out the considerable risks of hiding the cable services to the 450sqm of photovoltaics on the barrel vault roof without detracting from the architect’s vision. He also successfully installed lighting for the fair-faced soffit feature panels by carefully crafting the cabling layout and concrete pouring sequence for the slab above.
His quality consciousness was a constant factor. He repeatedly visited the steelmaker to monitor the quality of the prefabricated steel diagrid roof. And when the architect specified white cement for the concrete, Alan produced six sample mixes to get that white exactly right.
He deftly managed the enormous pressure placed on the programme when the diagrid roof subcontractor went bust. Given the complexity of the package and its interface with the curtain wall, an incomplete roof represented a catastrophe that threatened months of delay. But a consistently buoyant Alan showed invention and flexibility to recover. He took the decision to directly manage and pay the 15 members of the roofer’s team and resequenced the other packages with success.
Value: £48.7m