Name: Gavin Davis
Employer: Wates Construction
Project: Sunrise Senior Living Knowle, Birmingham
Contract: JCT 2005
Having successfully completed another Sunrise project at nearby Solihull, Gavin Davis was the obvious choice for this one. But this one was always going to be a much trickier affair.
It was the biggest Sunrise development yet, with 114 rooms in total, and the first to be split into two separate buildings, each with its own communal areas. With the typical 80-room Sunrise project taking around 62 weeks to build, Gavin put forward a daring programme schedule of just 63 weeks.
He then established a clear strategy − primarily, to treat the two buildings as two separate sites − and set precise team accountabilities. Having worked with the design team before, he was particularly successful in promoting a partnered approach with an ethos of continued improvement. He extended the collaborative culture to the subcontractors, working just as hard to build up trusted relationships at the workface.
He created a close-knit team of designers, subcontractors and suppliers that consistently delivered against hard targets. Members of the design team were able to talk openly with the subcontractors and trust their advice.
Calm and effective, Gavin met problems head-on. For example, during the steel erection phase, a decision was made to change the formation of the gables so they were no longer flush but jutted 600mm out from the rest of the elevation. Whereas the structural engineering solution was for time-costly steelwork, Gavin made the most of his fine relationships with the steel erection and carpentry supply chain to propose a programme lifesaver: a timber solution that could be implemented after the frame had been erected.
His clear ability to push through the build while maintaining the quality was noted by the client. Two months before practical completion, Gavin was asked for early completion. By concentrating resources and continued careful planning, he delivered the project four days early, a remarkable achievement in any context but particularly brilliant given the worst snow for 20 years in the weeks leading up to it.
Value: £16m