Silver Medal Winner |
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Category: Restoration Name: Terry Hughes Company: Laing O'Rourke Project: Leeds Grand Theatre Contract: JCT 1998 Local Authority, with quantities |
Terry Hughes put in a bravura performance on this project by buying into the end-users' 11-year dream of bringing this famous theatre up to date for modern audiences. For the scheme's many stakeholders, the long-awaited refurb was a labour of love, and Terry showed them that he and his team shared their aspirations. Downstream, he instilled the same values into all the subcontractors and specialist trades.
Terry took total control of the tough technical challenges. They included raising the height of the fly tower (where scenery and stage rigging is stored) from 36m to 42m above the stage, installing an orchestra lift with floating seating wagons, and building a lorry lift to raise articulated vehicles 6m to stage level.
Terry needed every bit of a lifetime's experience in construction – he started out as a bricklayer in 1965 – to master this horribly complex project. The expertise he amassed gave him the know-how to realise he could replace the proposed temporary works solution for raising the fly tower with one that reduced by a month the time required for installing and dismantling the temporary structure and saved the client £400,000.
With a challenging programme to refurbish this complex building, he made the right-first-time principle a rule for design. There was simply no time for discovering incomplete design information mid-job, so drawings were checked, issues raised and information fed back to the design team and subcontractors immediately. Likewise, going back to snag the building prior to handover wasn't a realistic scenario, so Terry instituted a rigorous quality inspection regime.
As the construction face of the theatre's transformation, Terry handled the huge media and public interest in the project like a veteran politician. Despite the end-users genuinely fearing more than once that the project was mission impossible, Terry delivered, and delivered brilliantly, on every front. So successful was he, that Laing O'Rourke has been awarded the contract for phase II of the project.
