Coming together

Concept and delivery

The project kicked off back in 2021. As is the nature of big projects, in this case, around £30m of the bigger spend, they take time from concept to delivery. Such that Monika had her own concept and delivery during the time, becoming a mum!

While she was on maternity leave from January to August 2022 project management remained in the capable hands of external consultants, Stace, overseen by Tom Louvre, Estates Projects Programme Manager. She was back just after the appointment of the main contractor, Walter Lilly, with sub-contractor Medical Air Technology (MAT) delivering the containment labs and clean rooms, and for the physical on-site work to get underway. She has remained as the lead up until completion in May, when the site was ‘handed back’ to the department.

In October 2023 over two weekends there were two major crane lifts to eighth floor roof of SAF. Closely planned for safety by Walter Lilly, the project team and supervised by the structural consultant Iain Wright, buildings were fully or partially emptied and exclusion zones set for pedestrians outside and our Gormley statue protected.

‘We were lifting equipment ranging from 150kg to 3tonnes over SAF and RCS1. For these crane lifts to take place we had to trim our beloved trees in front of SAF. This was carried out sympathetically removing the minimum.”

It is rare for a project to remove what might be regarded as a safety feature. SAF is a sprinklered building. However, installed not as a life safety feature but as a building protection feature. The direction from Bio-Safety team was to remove these from specified lab areas for safety reasons.  

When Monika returned from her maternity leave she picked up on this recommendation, and set about negotiating this. It involved many discussions with Building Control, insurers, Imperial Fire Office, user co-ordinators and Bio-Safety and various other parties such as alternative solutions providers.

Monika said: “As you can imagine it is not easy to remove sprinklers from a sprinklered building.’ In the end Insurers agreed to this proposal, a major achievement for all parties involved and I want to thank everyone who supported me throughout this process.”

Because the end date for the move from St Mary’s was non-negotiable, there was pressure, especially in the post-COVID-19 climate, to get the programme on track.  Monika comments: “We learned two main lessons. One to be more intrusive with our pre-surveys, the inconvenience pays off later, the other to fully interrogate and review all information provided by our consultants. Both avoid contract changes.”

As well as being world class facilities, among the largest in Europe, they are also set to be confirmed as BREEAM ‘Very Good’. Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology (BREEAM) is a sustainable building benchmark certification.

Gareth Hyde commented: “Carrying out a refurbishment of this scale and complexity, in an occupied and operational building and working with existing infrastructure is a big challenge. It has certainly not been easy but with everyone working together great new facilities for a large part of the Department of Infectious Disease have been delivered. I would like to thank Monika, Sam, Michael, Ian, Ana, Ben, the department representatives and all the project team for the huge amount of work they have put in to delivering this. A final big thank you to the occupants of SAF who have been so understanding while these works have occurred.  

Making the move

Moves are getting underway. The decant from St Mary’s will be over the summer, with the target of everything up and running and settled by September.

The Building Manager’s perspective

“There will always be issues that need to be reacted to when they present themselves but these for the most part were less than I have experienced in previous projects,” commented SAF Building Manager Michael St Clair Laing on the working relationship for this project.

He said: “I think the one thing that really made a massive impact was the weekly logistics meetings where we discussed specifically the movements in and around the building.

“This gave us scope to review upcoming works and deliveries. This then allowed us to coordinate with the various other projects within SAF and the surrounding buildings / areas but more importantly keeping the building operating for teaching and research.”

This proactive approach enabled negotiation of disruptions with users. An example was of the planning around exam dates and times. It was critical that there were no noisy works when exams were taking place.  Fran Williams in the Registry team helped them look two months ahead at a time to plan project activities accordingly.

Define noisy

A significant amount of work went into agreeing with different departments and contractors what constituted ‘noisy work’. This helped massively in managing expectations of all parties.

The Chemistry loading bay was a critical area with limited space which was reduced further due to the impact of the de-steaming project happening at the same time.

Michael commented: “At one point I counted seven different contractor activities planned on one day including the day-to-day activities managed by the Stores 7 team servicing all six buildings south of Imperial College Road. All parties were able to communicate and more importantly plan their deliveries to make the day run more smoothly.”

“With a project this size and duration there will always be issues that you need to react to, such as the main goods lift being out of action for a week and half. Being able to proactively plan logistics to a greater detail definitely allowed us scope to react to issues when they presented themselves.

“A massive thank you needs to go to all the SAF building users who were extremely accommodating in getting this project completed.”

The Maintenance Manager’s perspective

When adaptations are made to existing buildings, inevitably there is extension and expansion and additions to existing plant, or the need to separate new from old and make standalone to maintain function.

When architects draw up their designs, how these can translate into reality also requires the consideration of plant and infrastructure. Surveys, as mentioned by Monika, can pinpoint potential difficulties, but the Maintenance Team’s detailed knowledge of the buildings can assist in better planning and design for ongoing care and maintenance of the building.

Ian Day is the Maintenance Manager of the SAF building. 

During the refurb for the DoID he was able to highlight to the sub-contractor installing a bank of air handling units (AHUs), that they would be better if they were not linked as designed, and could be closed down separately for maintenance. In the event of a fault, or need for repair or maintenance, in one, as designed might result in having to close down a series of labs or spaces for a period of time, rather than being limited to just one.

This recommendation was fed back through to the installers and the Project Manager. Ian said: “When we are involved early enough, it can prove beneficial to the future ongoing maintenance and functionality of our buildings.”