Finalist |
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Category: Projects £7-10m Name: Alistair McPherson-Wilson Company: Bluestone Project: Cliff Park School, Norfolk Contract: JCT 1998 |
Communication must be honest, problems have to be confronted, and if you want quality you can't just walk by. They're the rules that Alistair McPherson-Wilson lives by and they served him brilliantly on this project.
Working within a live school with 900 pupils, Alistair made safety and minimal disruption to the school his key objectives. He programmed the works around GCSE timetables and other significant school events, ramping up production onsite to furious levels to maximise the holiday periods.
And even while ensuring site segregation from live facilities, Alistair welcomed input from the school. He consistently listened to the head's concerns on design features, developed positive relationships with school staff, and provided reassurance and a calm word wherever necessary. And as well as leading school assemblies on safety, he superbly channelled the students' excitement about their new facilities by getting them to contribute to colour schemes – he even had them snagging the works at the end!
His enthusiasm and honesty won the respect and confidence of site workers as well as school staff. Welfare facilities were of the highest standard, health and safety was a guiding principle, and second-best workmanship was not an option.
And through it all, he gave a fine display of technical mastery.
Realising that the classroom block had to be built early so the team could get the access it needed to remodel existing school areas, he pushed for a timberframe structure that allowed a significantly faster build as well as best value.
Foreseeing programme and buildability difficulties with the brick construction of a three-storey lift shaft through the centre of the school, he persuaded the team to change to prefabricated storey-high steel frame sections that could be manhandled and subsequently clad.
And he removed the 900mm step down to the school hall floor by filling the void with prefabricated timber trusses. The job was completed in three days rather than the five weeks that would have been required for the sleeper walls, foundations and timber joists originally proposed.
No surprise, then, that Alistair won Bluestone's site manager of the year award for this job and has since been promoted to project manager.
