lor engineering excellence journal 2013

2013 edition

The future of DfMA is the future of construction

1Welcome

The world is experiencing unprecedented transformation driven by a number of dynamic forces that are causing engineers to fundamentally rethink the way buildings and infrastructure are funded, designed, constructed, maintained and operated.

The challenges facing societies globally are different today. A fast-expanding population is becoming more demanding and the built environment is expected to push boundaries, inspire and amaze, relax and reassure, and make our lives easier and more rewarding. At the same time, governments, funders, developers and owners are increasingly constrained by strict environmental goals and continuing economic pressures.

Engineering has a pivotal role to play in creatively meeting this dual charge for efficiency and sustainability. As social, environmental, political and economic needs are advancing, so the construction industry must break away from traditional processes and embrace technological change.

As engineers, our challenge is to tackle these issues by evolving the parameters of construction in line with the world around us. We must question ourselves: is the same old method actually the best method? If we don’t have the answers to hand, we can find them through innovation, collaboration, determination and well-thought-out research.

Progressive thinking is vital for solving the issues of the modern world. The Engineering Excellence Journal is Laing O’Rourke’s response to sharing that thinking and growing confidence in alternative ideas. It is dedicated to the improvement and advancement of engineering and construction by showcasing the best projects and innovations in the industry’s developing areas of expertise, like Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) – the theme of this first edition.

I want the journal’s remit to be ambitious, and through peer group contributions I believe, over time, it can act as a force for change by anticipating real-world issues, exploiting new tools, taking risks and being the first to surface something compelling and different across an industry that is too often resistant to the new.

I hope the journal provokes valuable and stimulating debate across the industry and beyond. Enjoy the read.

Ray O’Rourke KBE ChairmanLaing O’Rourke

2 EEJ – 2013 edition DfMA

Design for Manufacture and Assembly – DfMA – is an approach to design that focuses on ease of manufacture and efficiency of assembly. It is a well-established approach in sectors such as the automotive and consumer-products industries that are driven by the need to produce large numbers of consistently high-quality products very efficiently. For example, many of the components of car engines are standard across an entire range, with different levels of performance controlled by computer software bespoke to each model.

In the construction sector the ‘repeatability’ of end products may seem to be less than that of other sectors, at least at first glance. In this context, the application of DfMA might be seen as more challenging. The traditional approach to construction is centred around the delivery of large quantities of raw materials to the construction site, where large numbers of workers bring them together, often in inhospitable working conditions. Seen through this lens, construction appears very different to the car industry.

Introduction Design for Manufacture and Assembly is helping revolutionise construction, making it faster, cleaner, cheaper and more reliable.

At Laing O’Rourke we are challenging this accepted view and have successfully developed an approach to Design for Manufacture and Assembly. In simple terms our approach is to design a defined set of high-quality construction products such as concrete floor-slab elements, structural columns or modular plantrooms. These are then manufactured off-site in a factory environment and pre-tested or commissioned before being transported to site. On-site these components are assembled into the completed building or infrastructure asset.

Through the repeated delivery of DfMA on projects to date, we have formed a strong understanding of the tangible value that this approach delivers to our clients and to our industry. As more and more clients recognise these benefits in the coming years we expect that a DfMA approach will lead to a substantial evolution of the construction industry.

DfMA

Author

Dr Gavin Davies

3Introduction

The first major benefit of DfMA is a significantly reduced construction programme.

DfMA benefitsA major benefit of DfMA is a significantly reduced construction programme on-site. For example, we have a concrete floor solution that does not need temporary propping in the way that other floor solutions do. This in turn allows earlier access to floors for other activities, or for fit out of floors before the next slab goes on. For many of our clients, the programme savings that DfMA enables is an important driver. Imagine the reduced disruption that is associated with delivering a new school in less than one academic year. Similarly a property developer may see benefits from reducing the amount of time during which capital is tied up before an asset can be leased or sold.

Another key benefit of the DfMA approach is quality. By taking much of the construction activity off-site and into a controlled factory environment such as at our Explore Industrial Park – in the English East Midlands we are able to achieve consistently high standards. Our highly automated approach enhances quality and efficiency at every stage – both in the products themselves, which are repeatedly honed to support optimum performance, and in the production process. This optimisation process can also improve the sustainability credentials of our products. For example, through the reconfiguration of the pipework systems in our modular plantroom products we have reduced the amount of raw material needed and made them operate more efficiently.

Arguably the most important benefit of DfMA is safety. By removing construction activities from the site and placing them in a controlled factory environment there is a significant positive impact on safety.

We have developed a set of metrics, known as the ‘pre-assembly calculator’ (PAC), that enables us to measure the extent to which DfMA is being applied on our projects – and track our performance against our targets. We have established a mnemonic to describe our aspirations: 70:60:30 towards 0. In other words, 70% of any given project is constructed using DfMA, leading to a 60% reduction of on-site labour and 30% reduction in programme – all in comparison to a traditionally constructed alternative. We are also examining our safety and sustainability performance, where we are aiming for zero accidents and towards-zero carbon emissions.

Manufacturing and assembly at Laing O’RourkeLaing O’Rourke’s main UK manufacturing centre is the 25,000m2 Explore Industrial Park facility in the English East Midlands. Here, wherever possible, our defined products are created using the latest automated technologies and our high-speed production line. Our structural component sets are well-established and increasingly we are looking at new approaches for the off-site delivery of mechanical and electrical or integrated products.

Ensuring that the right products travel to site, in the right order, at the right time, is clearly important. To help us with this we use tagging technologies on our products so we can track them throughout the process. Through our in-house plant company Select, we ensure that transportation of components to site is cost-efficient and has the lowest carbon footprint possible.

Once on-site, products are often taken straight off the trailer and installed immediately, reducing the need for large lay-down areas. Many of the components are large so Select provides specialist handling equipment where necessary.

70:60:30 0


DfMA as a catalyst for creativity and innovationWe collaborate very closely with our design partners on projects. In particular we spend significant time ensuring they understand the features and performance of our DfMA products. Our consulting engineering partners tell us they prefer to use our defined DfMA products as this reduces their need to carry out repetitive tasks and gives them greater scope to add value through design creativity.

Recently we looked at a successful project, Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury, Kent, England which was completed in 2011. We asked ourselves the question, ‘what would we do differently if we were to build a hospital like this one now?’ In answer, we modelled an alternative engineering and construction solution that incorporates several important DfMA opportunities. One relates to the single-bedroom ward blocks. At Pembury there are more than 500 single patient bedrooms. All of these are identical, or are mirror images of each other. At the time the hospital was built our approach to integrated DfMA was still under development and therefore much of the construction was done on-site. In the new hospital model we take pre-assembly to a whole new level, by designing a complete integrated bathroom pod and dividing partition wall with building services preinstalled and pre-assembled with the modular structural floor system.

To take advantage of the vertical stacking of the single bedrooms over four floors, we have developed a way to vertically distribute building services from the rooftop plant through compact yet accessible mini risers located in the corner of each modular bathroom/partition wall/structural unit. This significantly reduces the depth of ceiling voids in corridors, allowing greater floor-to-ceiling spans yet reduced floor-to-floor heights. This reduces the overall height of the building, delivering savings by potentially cutting the amount of excavation needed to keep the building within the existing planning height envelope. This reduction in floor-to-floor height also enables the most efficient use of our manufactured façade panels, so reducing cladding costs.

The use of an innovative pre-cast floor solution that requires no propping to the underside allows the installation of pre-serviced smart wall partitions and horizontal services distribution modules prior to the installation of the next level of structural slab above. This greatly reduces the amount of follow-on work for trades, and minimises the awkward access and logistics requirements associated with shifting materials in an enclosed environment. By pre-testing the completed bedrooms off-site, the commissioning process becomes much quicker.

This radical approach results in significant programme savings, cost savings and ensures a consistently high level of quality achieved in a well-controlled factory environment.

Next developments for DfMAThe future of DfMA is the future of construction, and as the industry surges ahead with DfMA innovations we will continue to develop and advance our own solutions. We are increasingly focused on more effective ways to design, manufacture and install mechanical and electrical modules for building services. For example, we are currently designing products parametrically, in order that we can scale products up and down in capacity without changing their configuration or related manufacturing process.

We are already thinking about integrated products, such as the building services and structural components being installed at The Leadenhall Building project in the City of London and the integrated single hospital bedroom described here. The development of integrated products is accelerating as they offer great potential for further construction efficiency and customer value.

We also see progressive interest in whole-life performance of buildings and infrastructure. This is leading to a new focus on the maintenance, refurbishment and replacement of our products, especially those with significant M&E content. Beyond this, we are considering how DfMA can impact on the potential to disassemble, recycle and re-use built assets at the end of their lives.

We see increasing interest in whole life performance of buildings and infrastructure.

Dr Gavin Davies is Mechanical Engineering Director for the EnEx.G. Before joining Laing O’Rourke he spent 17 years at Arup, where he was responsible for the investigation and development of energy-efficient building solutions.

Contents 5

ContentsInsight Case Studies

Innovations – Why they are key to the industry’s survival

Towards Zero – How to get to a target of double zero: no carbon emissions and no accidents

In conversation – Tony Roulstone and Dr Phillip Cartwright discuss the challenges of nuclear new-build

Design collaboration – The importance of collaboration to our business and the wider industry

DfMA for composite floor structures – Pioneering a new approach

Advanced manufacturing – Taking a visionary approach to virtual construction and manufacturing

Modular plantrooms – Energy centres and plantrooms are of growing importance

3D printing – digitisation of manufacturing

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01 The Leadenhall Building – Changing London’s skyline, the new Leadenhall building will be the world’s tallest steel mega-frame structure

02 Dagenham Park Church of England School – 70% of the building constructed off-site, and one of the most environmentally sustainable schools in the UK

03 Beckton and Crossness Water Treatment Works – Using an innovative DfMA solution at one of Europe’s largest water treatment works

04 Brisbane Airport and Gold Coast University Hospital Car Parks – A pair of car parks in Queensland demonstrate a new approach to the design and delivery of such projects

Engineering Excellence Group

Futures – Chris J McKinstray

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Innovations

Author

David Scott

The global economic crisis presents a challenging environment for businesses to thrive. In the context of a world climbing out of recession, we believe that change is essential for our continued success. At Laing O’Rourke, we are exposed to many drivers for change both from inside the business and outside. External drivers may come from large, longer timescale phenomena, such as shifting demographics, urban growth and climate change or from nearer term demands from our clients and governments for productivity, sustainability and performance improvements. Within the Group, our continued curiosity to challenge established practice and solutions has created a strong culture of innovation.

In combination with this culture of innovation, we recognise that technology has turned these drivers into opportunities. It is now rare for contractors bidding for work to be limited to a generic design solution developed by a consultant. Modern design and analysis tools allow contractor teams to rapidly redesign and tailor buildings and infrastructure to what they want to build in order to differentiate their offer from the competition. In other words, a client will be offered different solutions from different contractors, each using the products and systems they have developed to deliver efficiency and client value. In this scenario, competition is driven by the ability of the contractors to meet or exceed the client’s goals and performance requirements. Those who can deliver innovative and integrated solutions most cost effectively are the winners.

The pressure for innovative integrated building and infrastructure solutions is being felt across the industry. One of the principal ways we deliver innovation is through Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA). Only through innovation are we are able to pursue our goals of 70% of the constructed asset manufactured off-site, a 60% reduction of labour on-sites and a 30% reduction in overall

We are on the cusp of transformational change in the way that buildings and infrastructure are designed, procured and delivered. In this market, innovation and product development will be key to our survival.

programme, while working to eliminate accidents and minimise carbon.

In each of our sectors, we seek to maximise the value that we can bring by using manufactured components to simplify construction and bring speed, certainty and efficiency to the delivery process.

For Laing O’Rourke, innovation is not simply the development of new products but also the transformation of the construction process, both in what we build and how we build. We seek to collaborate in new ways, with new business models, new delivery mechanisms and most importantly, new ways of working with clients in order to deliver their ambitions and make them more successful.

An increasing challenge for clients is how to evaluate different options and how to compare one set of integrated solutions with another. Clients are able to compare costs but are often less certain about how to evaluate the benefits of building faster, safer or how to compare products of different quality, sustainability or energy performance. As more and more clients embrace innovation they are looking to assess alternatives on a holistic basis. For example, the rail and water sectors have been particularly interested in developing ways to consider lifecycle, performance and risk when assessing alternatives.

Over the last ten years and more, Laing O’Rourke has developed many different types of components and these provide a platform for us to differentiate our solutions from the competition. From a structural perspective our products include twin wall, lattice slab, façade panels, BISOn planks, shell beams, pre-cast floors and our new patent-pending E:6 floor solution. We are proficient in the use of steel, concrete, carbon fibre, lightweight, heavyweight or fibre reinforced concrete to create these products. From a systems perspective our products include smart wall, bathroom

modules, accommodation modules, modular risers, modular wiring, modular service distribution, modular plantrooms and integrated building management systems.

The innovation ethos is to continually look for new perspectives and new combinations of products or ways to transfer ideas or technologies from one sector to another. For instance the twin wall system was originally designed as a way of quickly making internal structural walls off-site.

It was then developed for basement retaining walls on several projects, before we proposed to use it for a water-retaining structure for a large tank assembly at Beckton Water Treatment Works, (see page 60). Our proposal was to replace a thicker cantilever wall with a twin wall assembly that was detailed to the rigorous requirements specified for water retaining structures. To convince our clients, we constructed a trial tank, at our manufacturing facility at Explore Industrial Park where we also experimented with different ways of connecting the wall segments and assembling the tanks.

The massive 360m x 80m x 8.5m tanks at Beckton were therefore built from high-quality factory-made concrete components, where all reinforcement was machine cut and placed to the correct length and position, with the correct cover.

Innovation is at the heart of Laing O’Rourke’s ambition. It is a fundamental part of our work-winning and project delivery strategy.

Innovations 7

1 – Leadenhall super plank PC beam solution – 3D view

2 – Modular riser

3 – Lattice slab: secondary plank

4 – Metrolink prefabricated bridge

5 – Anchor plank and table

The tanks used less concrete and generated less site waste than the original concept, and therefore had a much lower carbon footprint. Since the on-site assembly could be carried out quickly by a small but highly skilled team, there was a much lower risk of accidents. Having developed the solution for Beckton, we have taken the lessons learned and proposed this solution for other projects. Our process of continual product improvement means that lessons learned on this project allow us to simplify some details and connections in order to ease erection in the future.

We should not underestimate how much such solutions challenge the industry. As clients experience the many benefits of a DfMA solution like this, they become unlikely to choose a conventional site-built scheme in the future, with its higher risk of accidents and potential for site flaws that may only become visible years after completion. Site flaws are inevitable when building by hand, as labour in the construction industry is typically neither highly skilled nor able to achieve the highest quality standards, particularly when activity takes place over a wide area in all sorts of weather.

Using twin wall on 8.5m water tanks was an innovation, but it was also a natural development of the work done on projects in the past. We are now looking at using twin walls as beams and integrating them with prefinished platform units for the rail sector. In both cases this takes twin wall from a conventional product to a more sophisticated high-value offering.

Our façade system is another example of a sophisticated high value, highly engineered product that cannot be replicated by building on-site. We can create the high performing and elegant façade panels by casting onto sculpted metal forms in a large variety of natural or coloured concretes. Through this approach, we can create a range of façades that are only limited by our imagination. The results can look like stone, metal, tile or even brickwork and can deliver a level of detail that looks like it has been sculpted by artisans. However, while they are aesthetically pleasing, the key to the success of the façades is the panel’s energy performance. The buildings that use it are naturally better insulated and lead to structures that are much more airtight than industry best practice. The façades are typically connected to a structural panel by carbon fibre ties that extend through the insulation layer and are delivered to site complete with windows. This avoids thermal breaks or ‘cold bridges’ and ensures an exceptional envelope thermal performance.

An increasingly common result of collaborative project approaches is that construction and engineering companies are looking to work with the best consultants in the business, particularly those who understand bespoke and proprietary products and who can help develop them further and apply them effectively. Our desire is to combine this closer working with an ever deeper understanding of how our products are made and what they can do. For these reasons research, trials and

testing of products are fundamental to how we can innovate with them.

While it is essential to be rigorous about research and continual product development, we also need to be careful how we deploy our products. There can be a major cost difference between a lattice slab that is designed to be manufactured at a controlled facility and a lattice slab that is not. Therefore one of the vital roles of our in-house business, Explore Manufacturing, is to develop comprehensive design guides which detail properties of the products and explain how to optimise product design for manufacture. We use the design guides to help consultants understand our products and to enable them to quickly arrive at optimal solutions. Detailed digital engineering models for our products have also been developed to ensure consistency.

We believe that innovation through DfMA is already creating a new benchmark for value in projects as clients seek suppliers in an increasingly competitive economy.

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David Scott is a globally renowned expert in structural engineering, with a specialism in tall buildings. Before becoming Structural Engineering Director for the EnEx.G, David was a principal at Arup new York, where he worked on the World Trade Center master plan and the Freedom Tower. He led the post 9/11 industry review of design standards and procedures for tall buildings.

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EEJ – 2013 edition DfMA

Towards zeroChallenging and changing accepted industry standards, Adam Locke considers the health, safety and environmental benefits of DfMA.

It could be argued that the construction industry is not sustainable in its present form. Furthermore, the buildings and infrastructure assets that are produced are not sustainable. Traditional construction methods are carbon-intensive and the built environment is the single biggest source of global CO2 emissions.

Collectively, the construction industry consumes around one-third of the world’s natural resources, generating vast amounts of waste and pollution in the process. As governments rightly take tough measures to tackle these issues – and energy and commodity prices rise on the back of diminishing reserves – those that cannot evolve will find themselves unable to compete in the emerging low-carbon economies.

For example the Greater London Authority’s October 2011 report, ‘Delivering London’s Energy Future’, has suggested that London could potentially be looking at business opportunities of up to £3.7 billion a year from moves towards a low carbon future, but that this will require a large upfront investment, and an appropriate policy, regulatory and fiscal

framework. Strategies to achieve the targets will include energy efficiency, local low carbon heat and power generation and the promotion of low-energy transport. All of these are areas that the construction industry should be looking to develop and promote.

The need for change is also clear in relation to health and safety. As Philip White, then chief inspector of construction for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), remarks in the HSE’s Construction Division Plan of Work 2012/13, ‘Despite the economic downturn the construction industry remains one of the largest in Great Britain, bringing employment to around two million people; but it remains extremely hazardous. The characteristics of the industry and the challenges it creates in tackling health and safety are well documented. The industry remains a significant cause for concern; in 2010/11, 50 construction workers lost their lives – this was an increase on the previous year. As well as 50 fatalities, 2,298 major injuries were reported and 1.7 million working days were lost through work related ill health. These figures remain unacceptable and we must continue to reduce this burden of injury and ill health.’

Carbon emissions

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Health & safety

At Laing O’Rourke, we are working continuously to reduce accidents and carbon emissions towards zero. We believe that DfMA can enable significant strides to be made to reach these goals.

Global scientific consensus, public opinion and regulation worldwide all have, or are beginning to have, requirements for reductions in CO2 emissions in all areas of economic activity. The moral need to eliminate accidents from the workplace is, we believe, self evident. Both issues are key factors for responsible clients and end users in the built environment.

So how does Design for Manufacture and Assembly support ‘towards zero’? We believe that it makes a very strong contribution to both areas. This is not however through bolt-on extras, but rather as inherent results of an enhanced and efficient design and delivery process. Our approach has safety and sustainability ‘engineered-in’.

Author

Adam Locke

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Towards zero 9

Carbon emissions continue to increase globally. Key sectors contributing to these emissions include energy supply, transport and industry as well as residential and commercial buildings. The construction sector plays a significant influencing role in each of these.

Initially, it will be possible to meet regulatory targets using existing construction technologies. But as standards increase, significant improvements and innovations will be needed to achieve the required performance levels – and we expect much more rigorous verification and reporting processes to be implemented.

In response the industry needs to think and importantly, act, differently to achieve these targets.

Our own experienceThe Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has taken positive steps, and has produced guidance on key principles for designing energy-efficient and low-carbon buildings as part of its ‘Climate Change Toolkit (Principles of Low Carbon Design and Refurbishment)’.

This guidance identifies six key principles for low carbon design:

1. Understand energy use in the building type

2. Use the form and fabric of the building to minimise demand

3. Focus on insulation and airtightness

4. Use high efficiency building services with low carbon fuels

5. Manage energy use within the building

6. Use renewable energy systems

It is increasingly important to consider the whole-life impact of constructed assets and much work has been done on the relative balance of embodied carbon and in-use carbon. Consequently, the UK Government is targeting reduction of both in-use and embodied carbon emissions in buildings.

To deliver reductions, we believe that consideration early in design is essential. While the design process itself has minimal carbon emissions, it is the stage at which many of the key decisions about a project are made. In this way it can actually have a significant positive influence on whole-life impact.

According to a report by BIS (the UK Government’s department for Business, Innovation and Skills) in 2010, the proportion of carbon emissions that construction can influence is significant, accounting for almost 47% of the total for the UK.

Energy prices (and associated running costs of buildings) will continue to rise and government legislation will increase the financial incentives to occupy low energy buildings.

High standards of energy efficiency are increasingly demanded by Building Regulations and by many clients.

Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) now must accompany the sale and letting of all buildings. Depending on how the building is operated, there is usually a direct link between the EPC rating and energy bills, which has a knock-on effect on sale and rental values. While these regulations do not include the CO2 emissions associated with the construction process itself, innovations in design and materials use will be critical in meeting mandated levels of operational efficiency.

Carbon emissions

Emission contributions of key sectors

26% Energy supply

19% Industry

17% Forestry

14% Agriculture

13% Transport

8% Commercial and residential buildings

3% Waste and wastewater

Total carbon emissions from fossil-fuels (million metric tons of CO2)

Data: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/glo.html

47%of emissions in the UK can be influenced by the construction industry

Carbon emissions come from two key parts of the asset cycle:

1. During the asset creation process – including the design, manufacture, distribution and on-site operations. This embodied carbon arises directly from construction activities, as well as the carbon embodied in the (manufactured) materials and products used in the construction process.

2. Those arising from the constructed asset’s use in operation.


Two key elements arise from these principles that we believe contribute directly to the ‘towards zero’ agenda for our industry:

Fabric first: making the most of the building itself to conserve heat and energy.

Energy strategy delivered: an energy strategy aligned with appropriate building services for the whole building. Furthermore, the building needs to be controlled and operated in accordance with these principles. This is an area where too often the in-use energy can be quite different from estimates made during design.

If traditional building services are put into new buildings that have a different operational philosophy, then it is unlikely that the desired outcome will be achieved.

It is in both these areas that DfMA can make a big difference – through efficient use of thermal energy and vastly enhanced air tightness.

Fabric first Laing O’Rourke has developed its DfMA structural solutions, including flat slab concrete floor construction twinned with a structural concrete sandwich panel façade and internal columns. A great deal of effort has gone into designing the connections of the façade to the other structural elements and the ability to make the joints effective (as well as quick to install). Windows are installed and included within the façade panels prior to delivery to site. This approach has a number of benefits:

– Greater air tightness of structures: for example, we achieved low air infiltration rates of 1.29m3/m2/hr (at 50Pa pressure difference) at Irlam and Caddishead School in the UK, rather than traditional/normally assumed values of 3-5 m3/m2/hr.

– Exposed concrete and the use of concrete’s thermal mass reduces the energy demand of a building compared to alternative structures when incorporated in the energy strategy for the building so that the concrete gains, releases and stores heat at the desired times. For example, in summer night-time air flow along the surface of exposed concrete cools it down so that it is able to absorb heat the next day and thereby contribute to a reduction in peak cooling demand.

– Concrete from Explore Industrial Park can be particularly dense, and therefore has greater thermal mass than traditional in-situ concrete.

Reducing in-use energyThe DfMA approach means that more detailed design information is available earlier than in a conventional design process. This means that the energy performance of the building can be modelled early, allowing reducing in-use energy to become an integral part of the design process.

Laing O’Rourke is working with clients to ensure real (in-use) ‘energy efficient building operation’ through best practice commissioning and after-care. Our Energy Bureau, allows energy meter and sub-meter readings to be captured remotely to identify and diagnose unusual trends in energy consumption. Through this approach we can proactively support users of the buildings we have constructed to reduce carbon and manage utility bills.

Through a DfMA approach to engineered component assemblies, it is also possible to achieve higher levels of reliability and predictability in the operating and control systems. This gives us greater confidence that the systems will operate as they were designed to, as well as ensuring that design and operation are aligned.

Factors improving embodied carbon performanceBecause we are able to control material selection as well as factory processes, we can influence more of the embodied energy in our products. Refinement in product design can reduce material needs and increase the recycled content of materials.

A high degree of automation of material and manufacturing activities is also critical to minimising waste and improving efficiency. We are demonstrating the responsible sourcing of material and components through the BES 6001 accreditation process.

To further interrogate the value of the DfMA approach in site operations, we have established a set of environmental indicators. Evidence collected so far suggests that construction waste and site CO2 emissions can be more than halved through a DfMA approach compared with traditional practices. More specifically, we have been able to measure the following impacts:

– Site CO2 emissions down by about 50% – typically 600kgCO2/£100k, compared with 1200kgCO2/£100k.

– Site water consumption down by about 30% – typically 6m3/£100k compared to 8.5m3/£100k.

– Waste arisings down by more than 50%; best projects achieve 4.7 tonnes/100m2 Gross Internal Floor Area (GIFA) or lower, compared to 10 tonnes/100m2 GIFA.

– Reduced risks of local pollution incidents.

– Reduced risks of disturbance to neighbours.

– Decreased numbers and periods of time during which there are vehicle movements around site (and the associated noise, congestion and air pollution, as well CO2 aspects identified above).

As our portfolio of products increases and we continue to enhance our monitoring approaches, we will take a structured and informed approach to continually refining a low-carbon-intensity approach both in use and embodied.

Carbon and energy monitoring dashboard – our ‘Energy Bureau’

Towards zero 11

data suggests that further decreases have significantly slowed for the global safety leaders.

Although the serious accident rate has continued to fall at around 5% per year, this represents only a small absolute decrease, and the fatal accident rate has plateaued over the last five years.

The UK is a leader in global construction safety, with figures fluctuating in a band from 1.75 and 3.25 fatal accidents per 100,000 full time workers over the last seven years. This still equates to 41 to 78 deaths every year in construction. Australia is experiencing similar levels (2.3 to 3.8 fatalities per 100,000, or 18 to 38 deaths per year), but has also achieved only small improvements over an eight-year period. This inability to consistently lower the fatal accident rate suggests that the current strategies are insufficient.

Add to this the often overlooked element of accident statistics – occupational health in the construction industry. As Rita Donaghy reported in ‘One Death is too Many’, ‘Occupational health remains a serious problem in the construction industry. Thousands of workers die every year from mesothelioma and other occupational cancers and lung diseases. Twenty skilled workers (electricians, plumbers, etc.) die every week from asbestos related disease and 12 more construction workers die every week from silica-related lung cancer. It is vital that renewed efforts should be made to tackle this issue. The dangers are known and the preventative work needs to be done.’

Although much of this is due to historical exposure, it is essential that the industry minimises current and future exposure of its workers to reduce occupational health risk.

Construction ranks amongst the most dangerous occupations. The European network of Construction Companies for Research and Development states that ‘statistically, each construction worker entering the industry at 20 years of age and working for 20 years currently has a 100% chance of being injured by an accident at work’. Fatal accident rates are roughly three times higher than the all-industry average. This statistic applies across developing economies and established market economies, despite the latter having a strong occupational health and safety focus.

It seems that using current methods we may have gone as far as is possible in reducing the rate of accidents on construction sites. Workplace safety advances in developed economies have broadly delivered a significant decrease in occupational accidents and fatalities. The construction industry has experienced similar results, and the European Commission paper ‘Causes and circumstances of accidents at work in the EU’ states that there has been a decrease of 33% in construction accidents and 40% in construction fatalities in the EU-15 from 1995 – 2005.

Construction accident and fatality rates in countries with the strongest workplace safety culture are significantly below those with a lower historical emphasis on safety. Hong Kong for example has construction fatality rates more than five times that of the UK, due to the prevalence of low-cost and low-skilled migrant workers and a comparatively low safety focus. Adoption of more stringent safety measures should be able to close this gap in those countries, but recent accident time series

Health & safety 33% Incidence rates per 100,000 employees

ConstructionAll industries

decrease in construction accidents in the EU-15 from 1995 – 2005

Diffuse pleural thickening

Asbestos

Mesothelioma

Dermatitis

Asthma

Vibration white finger

Upper limb disorders

Spine /back disorders

Stress

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

normalised fatal accidents at work across all sectors for the EU-15, UK, USA, and Japan. 1998 has been set at 100. This data includes accidents in the course of work outside the premises of one’s business, even if caused by a third party, and cases of acute poisoning. It excludes accidents on the way to or from work, occurrences having only a medical origin, and occupational diseases. Fatal road traffic accidents and other transport accidents in the course of work are also excluded.

Data source: Eurostat.

94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06

140

130

120

110

100

90

80

70

Normalised fatal accidents (1998=100)

UK USA JAPAnEU-15


Mission ZeroLaing O’Rourke has used cultural and behavioural safety approaches to drive its programme for delivering a marked improvement in health and safety performance.

We launched Mission Zero in Europe in 2010 and subsequently rolled it out across Australia and Hong Kong through our first-ever global health-and-safety awareness day. now embedded enterprise-wide, there are two key reduction targets attached to Mission Zero:

– a 0.1 DIFR (an accident resulting in the loss of one or more shifts) by 2015; and

– a 0.1 AAFR (any accident at all, from serious injuries to minor incidents) by 2020.

DfMA has a significant role to play in addressing both the immediate on-site risks and the long-term health aspects.

The importance of design in reducing the risks on-site is key. As the 2003 study for the HSE, ‘Causal factors in construction accidents’ identified: ‘In the permanent works designers could have reduced the risk in almost half of the accidents. One of the main decisions that permanent works designers could have taken to reduce the risk was to reduce the amount of work done on-site, mainly through increased use of some form of pre-assembly.’

The Construction Design and Management (CDM) regulations implemented in the UK (first in 1994 and updated in 2007) recognises the importance of clients and designers, as well as contractors, in the management of health and safety risk.

Guto Jones, a Laing O’Rourke project leader, explains that DfMA can help make sites safer in two key ways: through reducing interface risk and by supporting a stable and more highly skilled workforce.

‘In terms of the impact on interfaces,’ Jones says, ‘it helps reduce the number of trade interfaces in the building process. By pre- assembling components off-site, the overall number of components on-site is reduced, as are the number of on-site interfaces. Components can be pre-assembled off-site in a more controlled environment, supporting greater safety as well as quality.’

‘As the number of interfaces is reduced, the overall number of people needed decreases. In addition, as more time is spent on key interfaces, the simplicity of the interfaces increases. This means that there are fewer people needed to install each interface, improving efficiency and reducing risk. There is also a wider impact: the site is therefore less congested, simplifying the management of the site.’

DfMA has a significant role to play in addressing both the immediate on site risks and the long-term health aspects.

Jones adds, ‘The continuity factor is also very important. We have had significantly greater continuity in both management and trade staff working across the DfMA jobs that I have led. This means that people can understand and learn what is expected of them and this carries through from one project to the next.’

Another consideration is the changing nature of work. DfMA shifts effort forward into the design and planning of the job. This means that key activities can be thought-through in advance. High-risk tasks can be planned as identified in the HSE report. DfMA requires an integrated team approach, and it is more likely that an integrated team can identify and address all the risks of a project. Also, a key consideration with pre-assembly is that, in general, larger components are being handled. Generally there are then fewer of these and so handling can be planned better, with the connections and interfaces being simplified and thus less hazardous.

Simplifying our work process is also likely to have long-term occupational health benefits, although this is still in the early stages of being understood.

By reviewing our products and processes systematically from one project to another, we will continually strive to achieve our Mission Zero ambition.

Adam Locke is Partnership and Innovation Leader for the EnEx.G, where he is responsible for supporting the group’s business development activities and managing its academic relationships. He is currently leading a number of collaborative research projects into the application of DfMA in the nuclear energy and commuter rail sectors.

In conversation 13

At a time of renewed investment in nuclear energy in Britain, Laing O’Rourke’s Dr Phillip Cartwright met up with Tony Roulstone, one of the UK’s leading authorities on nuclear energy, to discuss the best way to build a nuclear reactor, and the implications of DfMA for the industry as a whole.

In conversation

Tony RoulstoneDr Phillip Cartwright

Words

Matthew McCracken

Photographer

Tom Holmes

In conversation


“Today, building a nuclear station is an intensive on-site operation. But if we can move a lot of that work to factories and work in a more modular way, we’d see major benefits.” Tony Roulstone

Phillip Tony, can I start by asking you a bit about your background? Perhaps you could give a brief summary of your experience in engineering, and the nuclear industry in particular.

Tony I spent 20 years at Rolls-Royce, where I ran the nuclear side of the business as well as holding senior posts in aerospace. At the end of that period I led a business transformation programme for the company, which covered engineering, manufacturing and procurement. Essentially it was about making Rolls-Royce as good at manufacturing and supplying as it was at designing engines. At the moment, among other jobs I run a masters course in nuclear energy and co-ordinate nuclear research at the University of Cambridge.

Phillip As you know, Laing O’Rourke has a pedigree in nuclear build. We’re also investing a lot in DfMA [Design for Manufacture and Assembly], off-site manufacture and digital modelling. The Leadenhall Building behind us is a good example of a major construction project benefiting from this way of working. What kind of advantages do you think this approach brings to the nuclear industry?

Tony A good example is the submarine reactors I’ve been involved with. Submarines used to be built on the slipway, so they could be slid into the sea. They would start by welding hoops together to form a tube. Then they’d cut a hole where the hatch was going to be, bring through all the pipes, boxes and cables, and fit the thing out from the inside. It was a wonderful piece of intricate engineering, but it meant that each submarine took six or seven years to build.

From the 1980s onwards, there was a radical change in how the UK built submarines. We made all the equipment first – the diesel generators, the switchboards, the sonar and so on. Then we’d weld it all up afterwards. By moving to a manufacturing model, we were able to change completely the sequence in which the submarine was built. Design and manufacture could be done at the same time, and building the submarine became more of an assembly operation. This not only shortened the timescale and the cost, but also improved quality.

I think there are lots of similarities between what was done on submarines then, and what we’re trying to do now on civil nuclear stations. Today, building a nuclear station is an intensive on-site operation. But if we can move a lot of that work to factories and work in a more modular way, we’d see major benefits, not just in terms of time and costs, but also in terms of establishing quality systems, improving learning and health and safety.

Of course we have to be realistic about what can be done, but this has to be the direction of travel. Japan has already demonstrated that it’s possible to work in this way and get big improvements. In South Korea, this approach is now the standard. They’ve cut about 30% off the cost of their reactors in real terms over 10 years by building a reactor every year, using the same team, and setting about it in this systematic and progressive way.

It’s a big change from how we do things now in Europe. But we’re facing an energy crisis and, unless we get the cost of these reactors down, we’re simply not going to build them. For nuclear energy, this is the future.

Phillip One of the lessons we’ve learned in the last 18 months came from our experience of plantrooms. Around the time I joined Laing O’Rourke, every plantroom we built for every building was different. But then we studied about 1,000 buildings, and we found that three sizes of plantroom will fit any type of building in the UK, including a nuclear power station.

So suddenly we could standardise a plantroom. And by starting to do volume manufacture of these three sizes of plantroom, we’ve been able to push a lot of the work into the supply chain. That means we can focus more on the things we’re really good at: the stuff that affects performance, or carbon emissions, or how the room is going to be used and controlled.

Tony I used to run a water-treatment company earlier in my career. They did the water treatment on Sizewell, on Drax, on most of the gas energy plants, and on the first French nuclear plant imported into China. The water-treatment engineers thought every plant had to be different. So every time the designers started on a new plant, they went back to the drawing board. Even the brackets attached to the valves had to be different. So the plants used to take forever to design, and they were very expensive to build.

When we went from drawing boards to CAD, we decided to move to a standardised approach. We standardised the vessels, the pumps and the control systems. As a result, instead of taking 12 weeks to design a plant, we got it down to three or four weeks. Instead of taking 15 weeks to manufacture, it took half that. Commissioning was a lot easier. The supply chain could work more efficiently, and because we were ordering large volumes of standard items they could offer us better prices. In the end, we turned a business that used to produce half a dozen bespoke plants a year and lost money, to one that produced many standardised plants a year and made money.

Tony Roulstone

In conversation 15

Phillip We recently developed a way of making entire hospital bedrooms off-site, so they can be dropped into a hospital building in sequence. The interesting thing is, when you explain to clients that they will be getting a standard bedroom, they often react with horror. They think they want a bespoke bedroom. But then you explain the upsides. not only can they have 550 bedrooms for the price of 350, but the quality is much better. The pipework’s built in, so the rooms are easier to clean. They’re more energy efficient, because the seals are tighter. The control system comes already fitted, and just plugs right in.

Tony I always go back to the automotive industry. Most of us wouldn’t have cars today if we still built them like we did at the turn of the 20th Century. Mass production has brought so many advantages. And the same has to be true about buildings. But in the construction industry, there’s a feeling among clients and architects that everything should be unique. We need to challenge that misconception. If everything’s always different, it’s always going to be expensive, it’s always going to have quality problems, and it’s probably going to be unaffordable. Only by standardising will we ever get the cost structures right. And it’s about much more than cost. We need to show that standardisation can lead to a much better product.

One thing about standardisation is that it’s important to take the rest of the industry with you. Every company wants to have a competitive advantage, to be the trailblazers. But the fact is, unless the architects and clients are coming with you, you can’t change attitudes in a broad way. That’s what needs to happen if we want to innovate in this industry. That’s why you have to convince them that standardisation is the future. You have to blaze a trail in such a way that others can follow.

Of the new generation of nuclear reactors, the UK’s reactors are the closest to being built. And so in some ways this country is the test bed for future reactors. If we can change attitudes I think there’s a real opportunity for UK companies who know how to build in a modular way.

Phillip The new approach to manufacturing depends on co-designing – on designers and manufacturers working together and talking to each other. How do you encourage this kind of collaborative working? Bring people together and make sure these conversations happen.

Tony We did a lot of co-location of design and build teams at Rolls-Royce. In the old days, the designers who designed the nuclear cores and the manufacturers who built them were in separate physical locations. So what we did was take the designers out of the studio and put them in the factory. They could actually walk out from their office straight onto the shop floor.

Only by doing this did the designers start dealing with detailed challenges to do with fabrication, quality and machine-tool capability. The designers could understand the manufacturing technology, and the manufacturing people could understand the constraints of the designers and feed back their suggestions. This communication between the two groups was fundamental to getting lower cost, higher quality and an improved product.

Phillip It’s surprising to me that this sort of cross-fertilisation doesn’t go on more in the construction industry. What we’ve been learning is that, if you get people together as a multi-disciplinary team early on in the design, and do a lot more work up front, it pays dividends further down the line. So at Laing O’Rourke, we’ve begun working with our design houses collaboratively rather than contractually, using cross-functional teams.

One of the other things we’ve done is invest more in training our engineering teams to raise their design knowledge and awareness. We’re not training them to be designers, but they do need to be able to challenge the design where necessary.

“There’s a feeling that everything has to be unique. We need to challenge that misconception.” Tony Roulstone

Dr Phillip Cartwright


Tony At Rolls-Royce, there are two types of engineer. There are the ones who are very specialised and know all about compressors and vibration and so on. Then you’ve got the ones who have a broad understanding of the individual disciplines involved, and who can pull it all together. They have an overall concept of how a compressor works, but they don’t know the detail – they would have to talk to the specialist compressor guys about that. I think the most successful multi-disciplinary teams depend on this mixture of specialist and generalist skills.

Phillip You have a new teaching position at the University of Cambridge now. Can you tell me a bit about that? And are there any areas of research that you’re particularly interested in at the moment?

Tony I run a full-time masters course in nuclear energy. Our position is that there are people in the UK and around the world who are about to build and operate the next generation of nuclear reactors. And these people need to be educated properly. They need a broad understanding of nuclear technology that encompasses physics, engineering, electronics and construction. So we’ve set up an intensive programme to equip people with that knowledge. Most of our graduates will then go off and have careers in the industry, as operators, designers, advisers or regulators, in the UK or elsewhere.

We call it ‘educating the nuclear leaders of tomorrow’.

In terms of research, we have a team looking at nuclear waste, which is an important point for public acceptability of the nuclear industry and rightly so. We’ve also got a team looking at innovative designs for reactors.

One of my main areas of interest is to do with the size of reactors. At the moment we tend to build larger and larger reactors, because we’ve convinced ourselves that although these cost a bit more, they will produce a lot more power. But actually what’s happened is that while the reactors have become bigger they have become more complicated and hence more expensive to build.

The unit cost hasn’t come down. We need to completely break this idea of cost structures. So we now have people looking at much smaller reactors – perhaps a tenth of the size of the ones we’re building now. And we’re exploring the idea that these smaller reactors would be built almost entirely in the factory, in a production-type way.

Finally, as big reactors will be around for the next 20 to 30 years, we’ve got to get a grip on the cost of building those things. And all of the ideas we’ve discussed – sequencing, modularisation and improving the way design and manufacturing teams work together – are going to play a major role in this too.

Tony Roulstone is a leading authority on nuclear energy. He spent 20 years at Rolls-Royce, where he ran the nuclear business and directed a major corporate transformation programme. Tony now runs a masters course in nuclear energy at the University of Cambridge, and works as an independent business consultant for international companies in the nuclear, energy, aerospace, and technology sectors.

Dr Phillip Cartwright is Electrical Engineering Director for the EnEx.G. Previously, he was head of electrical power and control systems with Rolls-Royce, the world-leading provider of integrated power systems in the aerospace, energy and nuclear sectors. Phillip is a visiting professor in energy systems at the University of Manchester.

“I think there’s a real opportunity for UK companies who know how to build in a modular way.” Tony Roulstone

Design collaboration 17

Design collaborationDesign collaboration from the earliest stages of a project can provide tangible benefits in terms of costs, speed and sustainability.

Author

Paul Hohnsbeen

Society is changing at an unprecedented pace, with major demographic shifts, transforming global dynamics and growing demands on resources, infrastructure and the wider environment. At Laing O’Rourke, we are embracing a new holistic approach to our business activities that involves rethinking the way we engage with owners and occupiers, and how we design, engineer, construct and operate the built environment.

One of the key aspects of our new approach focuses on collaboration between the design and delivery team.

We are now practising a new method of collaborative design development founded on digital engineering (DE), through the development of multi-dimensional DE data models, as well as vertical supply chain integration and DfMA.


Design collaborators contribute positively to the DfMA process by developing digital engineering designs that are optimised for off-site manufacturing and assembly, essentially moving site-based activities into a controlled factory environment.

The company’s vertically integrated business already allows us to produce structural components at our Explore Industrial Park (EIP) manufacturing facility in the English East Midlands. We also manufacture and assemble mechanical, electrical and plumbing modules through our Crown House Technologies business.

I recently spoke with my colleague James Eaton, Laing O’Rourke’s head of pricing and digital engineering. He said, ‘Drawing in 3D is nothing new but doing so in 4D and 5D, and with embedded data in objects, requires an unprecedented level of discipline in design terms. Digital engineering and BIM drive transparency when it comes to who has done what and any lack of coordination is quickly exposed.

‘We are asking established design partners such as Arup to use the DE objects already created, components that we know work, and this probably makes us more demanding than other construction companies. It produces huge efficiencies, and there’s something in it for all of us.’

Design collaborators generate their greatest contribution to the DfMA process during the conceptual phase of design development. It is at this stage that the development owner, occupier, operator and constructor have the greatest opportunity as a team to define their collective objectives and the design solutions which best achieve these objectives.

Adopting early conceptual-stage design collaboration enables us to reduce time, effort and risk for clients and designers. Furthermore, the quality, accuracy and completeness of the information the design collaborators produce is better coordinated, more complete, less error prone and formatted for efficient dissemination into the material and component supply chain. Importantly, a committed investment in digital engineering at concept-design stage provides spatial and financial modelling opportunities for little additional effort, but which result in very substantial gains in risk reduction.

For us, digital engineering entails much more than 3D spatial modelling, as typified by BIM (building information modelling). On top of this, we also include time/logistics programming, capital costing, energy modelling, parametric data, asset tracking, and asset whole-life performance modelling.

Key to succeeding in digital engineering is close, collaborative working with in-house and external partners. Collaborators working together on DE data management protocols within the company’s vertically integrated engineering enterprise can deliver the changes that our industry needs to make. These collaborators contribute their skills and knowledge by using established digital engineering protocols to improve the quality, integrity and transportability of 3D models, which in turn facilitates rapid and increasingly automated propagation of four-, five- and six-dimensional data production.

Our experience is that the multi-dimensional data models we are producing with our design partners are sufficiently complete and accurate for implementing DfMA. Working like this vastly enhances the potential and efficiency of off-site construction manufacturing and assembly.

Impact of DfMA on design and construction programme

Feasibility

Feasibility

Design for Manufacture and Assembly

Traditional construction

Design & Engineering

Design & EngineeringTIME SAVED

Site Preparation

Site Preparation

Manufacture

Assembly

Construction Fit-out & Finishing

Fit-out & Finishing

Testing & Commissioning

Testing & Commissioning

Funding

Funding

Time

Design collaboration 19

This early stage approach obviously benefits from having an enthusiastic client who sees the potential benefits. Equally, we have the opportunity, through DfMA and digital engineering, to help clients make informed decisions by providing much greater and better integrated functional, spatial and financial performance information, at a time when risks are comparatively low and changes can be incorporated quickly.

Laing O’Rourke can quantify the success of design collaboration for DfMA through the construction capital value produced in a factory environment. The scope of this value includes the cost of all materials, components and sub-assemblies, together with their transportation, holding costs, fabrication, assembly, testing, commissioning, protection within the factory, and eventual transportation to site. It also includes overheads such as factory depreciation, running costs, taxes, DE modelling and labour costs.

As an early adopter, the gross capital cost of DfMA assemblies is comparable to traditional construction methodologies. However, we forecast that these DfMA assembly costs will materially decrease as design collaboration for DfMA and use of DE becomes more embedded in both our, and our design collaborators’ standard operating practices.

Laing O’Rourke applies the DfMA assembly capital value metric as described above to the overall capital value of a development as well as the development asset total cost of ownership. These values include time, labour, energy, embedded carbon, maintenance and operating costs, which is where the principal benefits of DfMA are seen.

Our new approach to design collaboration has further strengthened a productive and enduring relationship with Arup. Recently, the two companies collaborated on the design of Dagenham Park Church of England School (see case study p52). Dagenham Park was one of the last secondary schools to be funded under the Building Schools for the Future programme. The school opened last year, to

Design collaborators contribute positively to the DfMA process by developing digital engineering designs that are optimised for off-site manufacturing and assembly.

Paul Hohnsbeen is Business Development Director for the EnEx.G. He leads the EnEx.G’s client-building activities. An architect by background, he brings to the role over 30 years’ experience in the design, construction and operation of the built environment across north America, Asia and Europe. Most recently Paul was Chief Operating Officer for Global Switch, a leading international provider of data centres.

a positive reception from all interested parties, including the head teacher, pupils and the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. The success of this project, says Arup associate Jo Larmour, has been a catalyst for further collaboration especially in the use of digital engineering, for projects including King’s Health Partners’ Cancer Centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital and The Leadenhall Building.

‘Whereas with a traditional project we would have held design workshops weekly or fortnightly, the difference at Dagenham Park School was that Laing O’Rourke brought in its manufacturing and site experts at the concept stage. We were able then to learn something of what works well on-site; we had early conversations with the manufacturing team and we modelled components in a specific way, to suit their manufacturing capabilities.’

‘This contract was the most collaborative I’ve ever been involved in with a contractor’, Larmour declares, and she has since assumed the role of ‘link person’, ensuring Arup/Laing O’Rourke collaborative design teams ‘continue to work together in a consistent way, sharing knowledge, driving innovation and not reinventing the wheel.’

The principal participants in the design collaboration process are architects, engineers and our manufacturing engineers. In addition, key stakeholders such as capital expenditure and operational expenditure ‘commercialists’, the supply chain, and transport and logistics engineers can all benefit from a drive towards holistic and effective collaboration. Perhaps most fundamentally, there is also great potential for developers, asset operators, asset owners, and investors to gain too.

Laing O’Rourke is confident that developers and asset owners are keen to realise the benefits of the DfMA and the DE process: ‘Yes it gives far better coordinated design and enables us to understand risk far earlier than ever before,’ Eaton asserts, ‘but clients see the real benefit as being the asset model at the end of the process.’ We believe that these asset models will lead to significant client benefits in the future and are already starting to explore this exciting potential.


Author

Dr John Stehle

A flooring system developed for a challenging project has brought advantages in terms of speed, waste and safety.

DfMA for composite floor structures

In early 2011, Laing O’Rourke won the contract to build The Leadenhall Building, a 52-storey office building at 122 Leadenhall Street, in the City of London, architecturally designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners for clients British Land and Oxford Properties. It is an iconic exposed structural steel building with composite concrete floors. During the bid I developed a series of pre-cast floor options with the goal of removing the concrete operation from site for several reasons, including to improve speed, reduce material congestion on-site, avoid damage from concrete spillage on the sloping architectural façade below and improve site safety.

The Leadenhall Building foundations and retaining walls had been let and built under a separate contract, so there was very little time in our contract for design development before the superstructure steel was programmed for construction. Because of that there was no time to re-engineer the building from first principles or to change any of the main super structure or foundations. So the challenge was to create a floor system that was not heavier than the existing 150mm reinforced concrete slab that had the same fixing channels to hang building services, that would act compositely with the existing steel beams and that could resist substantial in-situ diaphragm forces as described later, but that would be built off-site.

This was quite a challenge and we agreed with the client that the new floor would start from level five and that the floors below this level would be cast conventionally. The proximity of the two types of construction made for a dramatic comparison. The system that we came up with was completely new to the industry. As with any new approach, we had to develop a rigorous analysis and testing programme to validate it to all stakeholders and demonstrate that our ideas were robust and practical.

The programme of testing started the day after the contract award, with load testing conducted at the Building Research Establishment (BRE)and a technical review by Arup. Concurrently, the DfMA opportunities for the project were developed, with the system undergoing more than 20 revisions before a final version was agreed. We commissioned a separate team at Arup to do the detailed design of the floor planks. Our Explore Industrial Park was responsible for the manufacturing and our specialist Expanded business responsible for assembly of the system. We conducted a series of manufacturing and erection trials in a very short timeframe prior to erection on-site.

The unique connection system that we developed had to be tested to prove its performance adequacy against the Employers’ Requirements and be approved by the client-appointed engineer, WSP, to ensure compliance.

DesignThe Leadenhall Building has a unique tapering geometry. The largest floorplate – at level five – is approximately 2,000m2 net internal area. From there, floor areas reduce linearly with building height. To achieve the slope, steel beams and concrete plank elements are re-arranged at every level near the south face. Where this re-arrangement occurs, the structural grid can be considered to be 16m by 10.5m between mega-columns, which poses a challenge with regards to the strict vibration criteria imposed by the client (response factor, R<4).

Pre-cast planks 150mm thick typically span up to 4.5m between steel beams, with which they act compositely. This depth constraint was imposed by the original in-situ composite floor design, as was the weight, which was matched by the use of lightweight concrete. The provision of channels in the soffit also ensured an equally utilitarian functionality to enable the fixing of services and suspended ceilings with ease.

DfMA for composite floor structures 21

1 – Erection of The Leadenhall Building pre-cast floor system

The external megaframe structure, which has nodes at every seventh level, provides the overall building stability, while between megalevels, K-bracing in the northeast and northwest corners of the main building provides stability to intermediate floors. The eccentric location of the K-bracing results in significant diaphragm forces both in permanent and temporary load conditions that are accounted for in the design of the pre-cast floor system.

The interaction of flexure, longitudinal shear and diaphragm forces is dealt with by a patented connection detail. A dowel bar with a female coupling device is pre-cast in the plank on one side of the joint, while a loose dowel bar with a male thread is pre-loaded in the corrugated void former in the plank on the other side of the joint. Once both planks have been installed, the loose bar is slid across and screwed into final position. Once the coupling is checked and signed off, the void former and joint are fully concreted with a high strength flowable grout.

1

Our innovative approach means up to 1,200m2 of pre-cast floor can be erected in a single day.


TestingBRE conducted a series of tests to assess connection shear strength, pull-out strength of a bar grouted in a plank, buildability, overall system strength and dynamic performance. nine shear tests were conducted to provide appropriate design parameters for a range of loading and geometry conditions.

We erected a 16m by 10.5m ‘typical’ bay in BRE’s laboratory to assess buildability, overall load testing and dynamic assessments. We used a digital engineering model for manufacturing and assembly purposes.

In terms of buildability, it soon became clear that control of the temporary stability of the steel beams would be a challenge. This could be overcome by adequate sizing of the top flange of the steel beam. However, as the steel had already been ordered for the project, we developed a simple temporary propping solution.

With regard to overall strength, the floor was loaded to ‘ultimate’ design load conditions as shown opposite (Figure 5). Even under such excessive loading, the floor responded almost elastically, with the majority of deformation fully recovered, and no significant residual cracks were observed.

BRE carried out a range of dynamic tests, including footfall, pacing and rotary shaking to establish the performance characteristics of the floor system with respect to design for the project.

ManufactureExplore Manufacturing produced the pre-cast plank elements at our state-of-the-art Explore Industrial Park in the English East Midlands. As the factory had never made anything similar, nor even used lightweight concrete before, a regular dialogue and evolution of the design system took place at high pace, which made for a great learning experience for all involved.

An early evolution of the design involved a structurally ribbed soffit, but this was replaced by a coffered soffit in order to simplify formwork and reinforcement cages. We continually reviewed and optimised the reinforcement cages to maximise the use of automated bent meshes and minimise labour content. The factory also made samples to ensure it could achieve an appropriate quality of surface finish and to demonstrate its ability to cast dowel bars in correct positions, so that the elements could be connected confidently on-site.

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2 – Connection shear strength test

3 – Connection details

4 – Digital engineering model of north core module

5 – Beam deflection under ‘ultimate’ design load

6 – Reinforcement cage

The new pre-cast floor system was developed, tested and implemented in less than 12 months.

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AssemblyExpanded, Laing O’Rourke’s specialist engineering business, assembled the pre-cast planks on site. Each plank, weighing about two tonnes, was installed in position by a very small team of operatives who then only had to screw the dowel bars together and grout the connections. The dry construction enables very quick access to erection activity overhead.

The factory had pre-installed edge protection sockets, lifting points and façade fixings, minimising the amount of site work and work at height. Planks for the north core structure, along with horizontal services modules and edge protection, were pre-loaded on to steel frames prior to erection (see figure 8 overleaf). In short, the plank system allowed a very fast rate of construction, although the complex steelwork for the megaframe slowed down the overall assembly of the structure.


The floor solution that was developed for The Leadenhall Building was essentially retrofitted into a design that was developed for in-situ concrete on a metal deck. As such, the effort to match the original design placed many constraints on the solution developed. While the floor solution that Laing O’Rourke developed met all these constraints, a more elegant engineering product could have been achieved if the pre-cast floor had been part of the designer’s original thinking.

Having developed this product, there is now an opportunity for Laing O’Rourke to work with designers to further refine this floor solution on future projects. We have submitted the concept and ideas for patent protection. Work is already under way to tackle the challenges and develop the design in more detail, and apply our thinking to new projects.

Benefits and future developmentThe difference between the conventional construction techniques used up to level five, and the pre-assembled technique above it is dramatic. The lightweight concrete plank system has had many advantages. It has been very fast to erect, and there is no on-site concreting, removing multiple trades and waste from site. There are fewer people on site, they are working more safely and the quality control of manufactured products is improved. Overall there is less waste and less mess, simplicity of placing infills, early access to construction above and faster follow-on trades (eg. façade fixings pre-installed).

The client and the site team quickly became big supporters of the new system because of its speed and simplicity and the ease with which infill panels could be closed off. However, some opportunities to refine the system remain:

– the manufacturing process needs to be refined and simplified;

– fixing brackets for services could be much simpler and more cost effective;

– temporary works can be reduced substantially if integrated into the basic design.

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Dr John Stehle is Structural Engineering Leader for the EnEx.G. He is responsible for developing innovative solutions that give Laing O’Rourke the competitive advantage at tender stage and support the delivery of some of its most strategically important projects. Prior to his work on The Leadenhall Building, Dr Stehle was structural advisor at Cannon Place – an exceptionally complex development built over a live railway station in the City of London.

7 – Overview of north core construction

8 – north core table being lifted into place

9 – Overall view of construction including pre-cast floors

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Advanced manufacturing

Explore Industrial Park (EIP) covers over 120,000m2 on the site of a former quarry and mine, near Worksop in England’s East Midlands. EIP is at the heart of Laing O’Rourke’s DfMA ambitions: it is here that a large proportion of our DfMA products are manufactured, ready to be transported to sites around the UK.

Laing O’Rourke started from scratch because it wanted to do things differently, and taking over an existing plant would not have allowed it to do so. ‘When EIP was conceived, we wanted to have the most modern and advanced plant in the world,’ said Alan Clucas, business development director for EIP. ‘While developing our plans, we made sure that we incorporated the latest technologies available.’

The custom-built EIP facility houses Laing O’Rourke’s pre-cast concrete production capability, where almost all of the concrete elements used on its projects are manufactured.

Author

Russell Kellett

Explore Industrial Park provides a glimpse into the future of construction and shows it will be clean, safe and effective

The company has already undertaken a future-proofing exercise to see how it could increase output if needed, and has calculated that it could expand to around 50% beyond the current peak capacity if demand requires it. In addition, there are plots available for future development. ‘For instance,’ said Clucas, ‘if production of our modular partition systems turns out to be particularly successful, a dedicated factory for walling projects might be built. This will give us the ability to provide an even greater level of service to our clients.’

The plant is divided between the production of standard components and of specials. There is a huge difference between the two. The high-speed carousel, on which the standard elements – wall and floor units – are produced occupies about one quarter of the factory floor. It can handle around eight pallets an hour, and everything that can be automated, is. An ink-jet plotter does all the setting out, and robots place the forms into which the concrete will be poured, position the reinforcement, and pour the concrete. Just 13 people work in this section and they can produce around 1,600m2 of wall units in a day.

1 – Explore Industrial Park reinforcement fabrication and assembly hall

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27Advanced manufacturing


2 – Aerial view of Explore Industrial Park

3 – External view of Explore Industrial Park office block

4 – Tilting table transferring product from bespoke carousel to architectural finishing area

5 – Pouring of white architectural concrete on bespoke carousel

6 – View from reinforcement mesh machine towards automated mesh handling crane

7 – Casting machine bespoke carousel

8 – View of architectural concrete finishing area

9 – Handling of cladding panel in architectural finishing area

10 – Pouring self-compacting concrete at bespoke carousel casting area

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Another quarter of the plant is the bespoke carousel, (which can produce around three pallets of work an hour) and another quarter, the static production area, used for making one-off products and also for finishing architectural concrete products. The final quarter is a reinforcing area, where again the reinforcement cages for the standard products are made automatically. Explore Manufacturing buys in coil that it straightens, cuts and bends or welds into meshes. ‘We have some highly sophisticated machinery,’ Clucas said. Reinforcement for the bespoke work is assembled by hand.

In contrast to the small workforce in the automated area, around 250 people work on the bespoke carousel and in the static area. There is also a difference in the amount of experience needed to do this work. Under the ‘buddy system’ where a new worker ‘buddies up’ with an experienced one, a new employee can be working at full capacity on the automated line in around four to five weeks.

In contrast, it takes about a year to become fully skilled on the bespoke lines. ‘We have guys working there with 20 years’ experience,’ Clucas says.

The wide variety of work requires a huge range of concrete mixes as well, mostly achieved by using different admixtures and additives. The plant has four cement silos: one with white cement, two with grey cement and one with GGBF (ground granulated blast furnace slag, a cement-replacement material).

The other vital factor for the effective running of the plant is the curing of products. ‘The curing chamber is part of the system,’ Clucas says. ‘We cure the products for eight hours. That is the difference between a factory and a site – we can engineer the products to be ready for de-moulding within a shift.’ That is thanks both to the additives used and the elevated temperatures in the curing chambers. At the end of that eight hours, the elements are de-moulded and taken into the yard where they cure for a further seven days. The yard

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is the same size as the factory, so there are 25,000m2 of production under the roof, and the same area under gantries as storage.

The bespoke products are very important and will never be replaced, but there are obvious economies to be made if a product can transfer from bespoke to automated production. For example, the bespoke flooring units for The Leadenhall Building were, as their name suggests, bespoke. As well as the effort that went in to their engineering design, there was a lot of work done at EIP.

The EIP team had to create a lightweight concrete mixture to meet the requirements of the building. The team undertook a concrete development programme to develop the correct density of concrete before manufacturing and testing a small section of the floor for client approval.

‘It required a lot of experience and resource to create our lightweight concrete mixture, which was a first for our team,’ said Clucas. ‘It took approximately a month to perfect the mix.’

Once detailed design data was received from the client’s engineering team, floor layouts were created virtually, identifying each of the individual units required. This process also produced data for the production scheduling system, which allows the on-the-ground team to know what units to manufacture and when.

Detailed information was then sent from the CAD system to the factory floor to initiate the manufacturing process.

This is the process that Explore uses on all its work. It has a team of about 30 people who work in an office above the factory, In this way they can have a close relationship with the workers in the factory. ‘It’s very interactive,’ Clucas says. ‘Whatever they draw is what we make.’

In the case of the units for The Leadenhall Building, Clucas is in the process of trying to turn them from a bespoke product into a standard one, that could be rolled out and used more widely. ‘It was the first evolution of a new product,’ he said. ‘It was effectively hand manufactured and therefore more expensive than future iterations will be. What has evolved from this is further product development. We have simplified the design and are in discussions with the equipment manufacturers so we can have an automated configuration on the production line.’

This is part of a general development towards making the automated line more flexible. Already, with its standard products it is able to vary dimensions to suit the designs of individual buildings, but Clucas hopes that it can develop further. ‘There will always be bespoke,’ he says. ‘It is about doing it cost effectively.’ He cites

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the example of major car manufacturers. They produce cars at a range of prices and with different specifications, yet many of the elements within those cars are variations on the same standard product. Some will actually be the same, and others will be adapted in terms of dimensions or materials. It is this kind of ‘bespoke standardisation’ which Clucas is aiming for.

The factory was set up to be the most advanced of its type, and it is an integrated part of Laing O’Rourke’s DfMA approach, rather than simply a supplier to it. It has helped to prove the viability of certain approaches which many doubted. For example, said Clucas, it has played a vital role in the development of the company’s schools solution. ‘Two and a half years ago everybody was totally negative about the idea of fitting windows in a factory.’ It was believed that too many would be broken.

But the team in the façades division was convinced it could work. The window manufacturer delivered the windows to Explore, they were fitted there and the completed wall elements delivered to the site. ‘This allowed us to remove a high-risk activity from the site,’ Clucas said, ‘and do it safely in the factory.’

Because of EIP’s central role a conscious decision was taken that it would not supply other organisations. The reason that some elements are bought in (and when they are, they are made to Laing O’Rourke’s demanding specifications) is that expansion requires a certain volume of work. It is not, for example, worth employing an extra shift for just a little additional work. The core concrete work is still done by a single shift, although the planning permission allows 24-hour working.

11 – Pre-cast concrete stairflight in finishing area

12 – Yard gantry crane handling pre-cast concrete edge beam for Manchester Metro

13 – Lattice girder cutting and welding machine

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Russell Kellett is Leader of Laing O’Rourke’s Explore Manufacturing business. He plays a pivotal role in the realisation of the business’ DfMA agenda. With over 30 years’ experience in project delivery, Russell has worked across the spectrum of building and infrastructure sectors. Before returning to the UK in 2011, he led the Group’s operations in Dubai, where he was responsible for high-profile developments including Ski Dubai, Old Town Commercial Island and Atlantis the Palm.

14 – View from casting station on the high speed carousel

15 – External view of Explore Industrial Park offices, factory and batching plant

Visitors to the factory are struck by how calm, quiet and ordered it is. But that calm, ordered activity will, most probably, extend around the clock in the future.

The next big challenge will, he said, ‘be to implement mechanical, electrical and plumbing components into our construction projects as we speed up how quickly we are able to deliver products. As an innovative engineering-led business that aspires to challenge traditional methods of construction and transform them into modern processes, we will continue to lead these projects and create solutions that offer our clients value for money, surety of delivery and a quality product.’

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Energy centres and plantrooms are of growing importance as they are the ‘engine’ of every building. The majority of buildings require at least one or two energy centres, and large projects may require several.

Increasingly, our buildings are being designed to achieve lower energy consumption and carbon emissions targets, along with targets for renewable energy and electricity generation on site. This is in response to the increasing focus on sustainability, as buildings consume a great

deal of energy during their lifetime and emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This focus is set to accelerate and become a key consideration in how our buildings are designed, manufactured, installed, monitored and operated. Large buildings such as commercial offices, hospitals and schools use large amounts of energy and thus require careful design, construction and operation if they are to minimise their environmental impact and maintain the internal environmental conditions required.

Author

Dr Phillip Cartwright

Advanced mathematics and cutting-edge technology are revolutionising the design, production and operation of plantrooms.

Modular plantrooms

Modular plantrooms 35

In addition, clients expect a high quality environment from their building with intelligent monitoring and control of the energy generation systems in an efficient, environmentally responsible way. Continuous and automatic diagnostic checking of the environmental systems can pro-actively manage the energy consumption and carbon emissions of the building, maximising potential revenue and minimising utility costs.

In the past, the construction industry’s approach to mechanical and electrical (M&E) building services and, in particular, to plantrooms and energy centres, has been one of bespoke design for each individual project. The industry approach was also both to build and then manually test the plantroom on site.

Other industries have a different approach to energy generation, M&E engineering and control systems. Aerospace, shipping and the automotive industries have quite a pedigree in DfMA for plant, M&E and control systems. Taking lessons from these industries provides insight for the construction industry into a new approach to developing, designing, manufacturing, assembling, integrating, operating, monitoring and servicing, energy generation, heating, cooling and ventilation systems. Our new modular approach is to manufacture, test and pre-commission off-site. This is providing mechanical and electrical systems which are now:

– off the programme critical path;

– faster to design, manufacture, install and commission;

– targeted at being 15% cheaper;

– more efficient and with higher availability and reliability.

Companies like GE and Rolls-Royce deliver a family of engines for different ranges of aircraft

which are based on one design, component and manufacturing set. In a similar way most car manufacturers have many different types of cars in their range but their engine block is built from standard configurable components through DfMA. It is not unusual for several car manufacturers to share standard engine blocks. We are now taking a similar approach to DfMA for:

– plantrooms;

– energy centres;

– horizontal distribution and vertical risers;

– building management systems.

Three sizes fit allWith the help of our design partners we recently studied more than a thousand plantrooms that we had built and/or they had designed. We studied the size and ranges of each plantroom and their application. We looked at which of the rooms were providing electricity, hot air, cold air, hot water and cold water. We considered flow rates, energy consumption, plant, pipe materials and many other attributes. Our ambition was to optimise the system in a similar way to that of aerospace and automotive manufacturers. Our first approach used a system know in mathematics as linear programming.

Linear programming is a mathematical method for determining the way to achieve the best outcome (such as maximum profit or lowest cost) in a given mathematical model for a list of requirements that can be represented as linear relationships.

These relationships define a ‘feasible region’ which is a convex polyhedron that can be defined as the intersection of finitely many half spaces, each defined by a linear inequality.

The trick then is to use a linear programming algorithm to find a point in the polyhedron where this function has the smallest (or largest) value and hence to determine the preferred solution.

This may seem like a piece of obscure mathematics, but it has highly practical applications. The problem of solving a system of linear inequalities dates back at least as far as the French mathematician Fourier, after whom the method of Fourier-Motzkin elimination is named. Leonid Kantorovich developed the earliest linear programming in 1939 and used it to help plan expenditures and resources during World War II in order to reduce costs to the army and maximise losses to the enemy. Because of its value in war, the method was kept secret until 1947. Then George B. Dantzig published the simplex method and John von neumann developed the theory of duality as a linear optimisation solution, applying it in the fields of game theory and industrial planning.

At Laing O’Rourke, as a result of our work in linear planning we were able to simplify greatly our plantrooms whilst still making them suitable for 100% of our projects.

As a result, we developed a design of just three plantrooms. We use our configuration tool to determine the most suitable option, dependent on the size of a building:

– Option 1: up to 5,000m2;

– Option 2: between 5,000m2 and 10,000m2;

– Option 3: up to 25,000m2.

For buildings bigger than 25,000m2 the configuration would use a combination of options.

1 2 3Up to 5,000m2 Between 5,000m2 and 10,000m2 Up to 25,000m2

PlantroomsStandardised to suit three sizes of buildings

36 DfMAEEJ – 2013 edition

These new plantroom designs not only consider the ease of manufacture and installation, but also the maintenance of the working system. Intelligent sensors are embedded within the plantroom for diagnostic purposes, so that the status of the plant can be monitored in real time. In place of a conventional plant replacement strategy, the ‘system’ informs users about performance. Only plant that is failing is replaced, drastically reducing costly maintenance budgets and avoiding unnecessary replacements. Clients have a user-friendly system based on Microsoft or iOS technologies. For example, a client can compare real-time energy information by plantroom to track consumption. Alternatively, a building manager can receive a text alert on their tablet or smart phone about any plant failure, rather than having to be at one location all the time. Sensors also track aspects of the external environment such as outside air temperature and humidity.

A smart building with extensive provision of sensors not only allows enhanced building user control, but importantly has the intelligence and ability to automatically optimise its own system performance according to the environment and usage. This smart system allows total monitoring and automatic building control to optimise the performance of the building.

The plantrooms and energy centres are the real engine core of every building. By using a smart system to run individual buildings, a client can also link several of their buildings and see real time data on all of them, allowing them to make comparisons. The masses of useful data produced are analysed and stored using cloud technologies. Gone are the potentially thousands of square feet needed in-house to

Having a standard set of configurable options now allows us to implement the next stage which is the design process, in which the designer can configure the systems in a similar way to which you can buy a BMW online.

The standard set of configurable options has also allowed us to focus on the next stage of our journey which is the manufacturing process. We have been working closely with Comau – a company with over 40 years of advanced manufacturing process specialising in automation and robotics. As a starting point, we now have a fully parametric plantroom model. Within the plantroom model we have created fully parametric Revit 3D fittings that are not currently available within our industry and are also producing a series of component sets based on tube manipulation including spun flanges, pulled tees and formed bends.

Although this work is still in the early stages of development, the eventual aim is to incorporate full parametric design into the plantroom models. This would automatically reconfigure the pipework, fittings and components within the plantroom, should

a pipe be resized based on an amended flow rate. This change would generate a revised plantroom model and automatically produce layout drawings, full bills of materials and manufacturing instructions.

In the aerospace and automotive industries, this is termed the process design simultaneous engineering (SE) stage. By using the same process we have shown it is possible to reduce the number of parts as well as their complexity and maximise standardisation. This has enabled us to show the benefits of automated and robotic process equipment designed for the automotive industry. This technology delivers highly productive and repetitive parts and assemblies to a high level of quality, covering pipework sub-assemblies and steel frame assembly.

To further push the boundaries of this approach, we have also looked at using alternative materials to reduce manufacturing cost. The proposed use of stainless steel (316L thin wall) pipework will enable us to maximise the use of stainless steel pipe and tube processing technology. This includes laser cutting, tube manipulation, flange forming and tee forming machines, all used to produce the pipework sub-assemblies. There is a substantial saving in purchasing parts, cutting and welding time, as well as a reduction in the number of joints and leak paths. It is now possible to reduce the manufacturing and assembly process to build a complete plantroom from 10 weeks to only a few days. In addition, the introduction of wireless electrical switches and sensors means that the plantrooms have less wiring. The reduction in wiring, and in joints and connections has also increased the availability and reliability of the plantroom.

The smart building has the ability to optimise its own system performance.

BMW’s configurator is a model worth following.

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Modular plantrooms 37

Remote asset management

Integration & automation

Fault detection & diagnostics

Continuous commissioning

Measurement & verification

Carbon footprint analysis

Energy analysis

Subject matter expert

Remote user

store data, to be replaced by a flexible, scalable online cloud solution that can be expanded and contracted with the changing needs of data storage.

As part of our ongoing research at Manchester, Oxford and Cambridge Universities we are looking at technical improvements in commissioning energy centres, plantrooms and M&E systems. For example, consider the way you install a new television in your home. You take it out of the box, plug it in and it asks you if you want to set it up manually or want to run an automatic set up. Does anyone ever install it manually? With the advances we are making in our building management systems, we are developing a system that provides automated commissioning for faster, more accurate site installation and handover for plantrooms and energy centres. As technology advances it will also be possible to consider how to implement technology that harvests energy from the environment. Switches could be powered by kinetic movement for example.

We believe the future will bring applications that react to the surrounding environment. Depending on the external environment and other factors (such as time of year) a building could modify itself and its systems for optimal power consumption and energy export capability, and to maximise occupant comfort. We are excited about the potential for reactive façades that change orientation depending on the seasons and solar intensity, ventilation systems that only operate when certain conditions are met, and intelligent heating and cooling systems (different from simply the ventilation system) that change depending if heating or cooling is required.

1 – The parametric model has the inherent ability to automatically reconfigure the system when variables are changed and is linked directly to the manufacturing facility

2 – In the automated manufacturing facility the number of welds are significantly reduced increasing performance and availability

3 – The standard advanced plantroom module

4 – Our tools allow us to virtually Design for Manufacture and Assembly, commission and model facilities management before starting the process of actual factory build, test and site installation

Dr Phillip Cartwright is Electrical Engineering Director for the EnEx.G. Previously, he was head of electrical power and control systems with Rolls-Royce, the world-leading provider of integrated power systems in the aerospace, energy and nuclear sectors. Phillip is a visiting professor in energy systems at the University of Manchester.

We have a clear vision for the future with an advanced M&E manufacturing centre which we will roll out as we develop this approach across new products such as energy centres, general M&E services and building, management systems in addition to plantrooms. This will sit next to our manufacturing facility at our Explore Industrial Park so we can capture the benefits not only of advanced manufacture of mechanical and electrical products but also of the integration of more of these systems into our standard building products.

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3D printingdigitisation of manufacturing

The Economist has claimed that 3D printing will catalyse a third industrial revolution. Each new iteration of 3D printing technology results in cheaper systems, that build very complex parts which are difficult to fabricate any other way. Although 3D printing was invented in 1989 it has taken time to mature, just as mobile phones took years to evolve into an incredibly useful multi-functional device. As the choice of materials and their properties improves, many new applications for 3D printing will become practical.

3D printing makes the mass customisation of goods comparatively simple, because the machine makes no distinction between printing 10 parts of the same design or 10 parts differently. Printing time and materials consumed are important, but the geometry is free. While this is great for producing customised toy figurines, we think it could also have a major impact in the construction industry.

3D printing is an emerging technology that is ideally suited to construction in general and DfMA in particular.

Construction 3D Printing Shortly after 3D printing was invented in the late 1980s, researchers realised that they could scale up the technology to build construction-sized components such as façade panels, and even whole buildings. Construction 3D printing, also known as ‘additive manufacturing for construction’ is an emerging technique based on methods similar to 3D printing: namely fabricating objects sequentially in two-dimensional layers while using very different materials, including concrete. The task of scaling up these technologies has been slow, and there are still challenges to overcome.

However the pay-off from the current broad R&D effort will be game-changing.

Authors

Dr Andrew T. Harris Dr James Gardiner

…the third industrial revolution.

3D printing 39

Just as nature uses very few materials to build highly complex structures that can perform in different ways in different places, so construction 3D printing can use one or two inexpensive materials (such as concrete and foam) to create high-performance building elements by placing material exactly where it is needed and in combinations that are impractical to achieve using conventional construction techniques.

Functionality, such as acoustic performance or air handling, can be added to building elements without having to add materials or other components. This can significantly simplify the construction and assembly process. With geometry being virtually free, build time and material usage become the critical factors such that we can customise a building’s form, structure and texture to take shapes that would otherwise be difficult to fabricate, optimising its performance and creating aesthetically appealing designs.

Such capabilities are difficult to achieve with conventional means or other digital fabrication technologies, such as CnC milling and laser/ plasma cutting of sheet materials, and while cutting these standardised materials has become much easier with digital fabrication techniques, the structures built with them remain similar to conventional construction, with fixing of these modified materials becoming more complex and usually more time consuming.

Since construction 3D printing relies predominantly on granular or semi-liquid materials to build up structures and the fixing method never changes, complex geometries are just as easy to fabricate as simple ones.

Construction 3D printing has the potential to transform the construction industry, especially in the areas of DfMA and pre-cast concrete manufacturing. It is ideally suited to factory environments where the climate is controlled

1 – Sketch of how pre-cast concrete elements could be transformed through customisation and construction 3D printing

2 – Sketch of concrete column node. Images by James Gardiner

and machinery can be used efficiently, with support services such as post-curing and finishing processes at hand.

Importantly, we do not need to throw out the old in order to benefit from the new; construction 3D printing can be an added capability that complements existing operations. It can allow us to add complex surface textures or features to pre-cast panels or be used for fabricating those difficult panels or column nodes that would otherwise be done on a custom line by hand or by specialist contractors (Figures 1 & 2).

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transformation of the material to reach a solid state, as the materials undergoing transformation are supported within the build platform by the unprinted sand surrounding it. Subsequent layers can proceed rapidly, while the material is curing below. This fabrication method provides support for overhanging geometry, as sand is selectively transformed to stone within a bed of untouched sand, allowing freeform 3D geometries to be fabricated (Figure 4).

The fountain made by D-Shape (Figure 5) demonstrates the capabilities of this technique for creating virtually unrestricted 3D objects; it is limited at present only by the strength of the materials and a printing resolution of approximately 5dpi (dots per inch), with minimum detail restricted to approximately 20mm in size.

Problems with material strength, delamination between layers and weathering durability (common to magnesia cements), have seriously hampered D-Shape’s success and prevented it from finding a foothold in the construction industry. The Radiolaria sculpture opposite (Figure 6) is a significant scaling up of the demonstrated capabilities of construction 3D printing techniques to date. The sculpture was intended for installation on a roundabout in Tuscany, Italy but the team has been unable to satisfy local engineering codes and receive approval for installation.

Who is doing it? There has been a lot of recent media excitement with a number of proponents stating that they will soon ‘print’ houses, such as DUS Public Architecture with its bio-plastic house; Softkill, with its house made of nylon; and Janjaap Ruijssenaars, using the D-Shape process to create a house with 30m spans with little visible structure to support it (Figure 3). These proposals can at best be considered speculative, as they overlook fundamental requirements of construction, such as selection of structurally sound, weatherproof and fire resistant materials.

There are also a number of companies and research institutions that are approaching the development of construction 3D printing techniques more commercially. The main players in this field include D-Shape, Freeform Construction, Contour Crafting™ and Concrete Printing.

The D-Shape technique selectively ‘prints’ an inorganic liquid (magnesium chloride) onto a bed of sand mixed with magnesium oxides. The liquid creates a chemical reaction with the oxides in the sand mix and the printed sand transforms into a sandstone-like material or magnesia cement (Dini, 2009). During this transformation process from granular sand to sandstone, which takes approximately one hour, subsequent layers of sand are deposited over the last layer and the next layer is printed. There is no requirement for a rapid

3 – Ruijssenaars Landscape House. (Image courtesy of Universe Architecture)

4 – The D-Shape machine printing James Gardiners’ ‘prototype column’ (Photo by James Gardiner. D-Shape™ was set up by Enrico Dini)

5 – Fountain fabricated by D-Shape, designed by Co-de-it and Disguincio

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3D printing 41

Freeform Construction was created in 2008 and is headed by Dr Rupert Soar, with Mineraljet as their construction 3D printing technique. The company has disclosed little about this technique though we do know that the process centres on a method for delivering a highly viscous low-water-content gypsum through a jetting system, depositing material with a precision robotic arm onto a build platform. There are significant technical issues relating to delivery of the material through this system and the concept has yet to be proven viable. High-density alpha gypsum is claimed to have excellent properties for construction, including a tensile strength equivalent to that of high-strength concrete, low moisture permeability and good workability.

The Contour Crafting™ technique, developed by Dr Behrokh Khoshnevis at the University of Southern California, was unveiled in 1996 and is the oldest technique under development. The team has demonstrated a number of straight and curved wall sections (CRAFT, 2010) and scaled-down adobe-type structures (Figure 7). It has proposed single and multi-storey dwellings and shelters for construction on the moon (Khoshnevis et al, 2005).

The Contour Crafting™ concrete extrusion technique makes elements from two materials. Three heads extrude a modified concrete paste, with two outer heads (Figure 8) extruding the wall profile and an internal pivot arm extruding the internal structure.

The concrete paste that the Contour Crafting™ machine uses contains bentonite which ‘dramatically decreased water seepage, and increased the paste plasticity’ (Hwang, 2005). Although the use of bentonite solved issues with the extrusion of concrete in successive

6 – Full scale Radiolaria under construction (image courtesy of Enrico Dini)

7 – Contour Crafting™ – Scaled down adobe structure test (Image courtesy of Dr Khoshnevis, USC)

8 – Contour Crafting concrete printing nozzle (image courtesy of Dr Khoshnevis, USC)

layers, it does not appear to have solved the issue of slump when creating overhangs (required to build 3D curved geometry).

The absence of true 3D freeform elements at construction scale suggests that the Contour Crafting™ technique is currently limited to creation of simple geometric forms. Although this may appear to be a significant limitation of the technique, one must remember that the vast majority of buildings today are rectilinear or are largely 2.5D extruded forms. Hence there could be a large market for such a technique if the team can demonstrate its viability.

The Concrete Printing ‘fourth technique’ has been under development at the Additive Manufacturing Research Group at Loughborough University in the UK since 2006 within the Wolfen School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. Dr Rupert Soar (now with Freeform Construction) originally led the project with Dr Richard Buswell.

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The Concrete Printing machine (Figure 9) works on the basis of selective extrusion of a paste material through a nozzle mounted on a gantry, in a similar way to that of Contour Crafting™. The major difference is in nozzle design and the use of material to support overhanging structures during the build cycle. The Concrete Printing nozzle has the capacity to vary its resolution to allow the extrusion of both bulk materials and fine detail within the same process (Buswell et al, 2007a) and is deposited in layers between 6-9mm thick.

The materials used to date by the Concrete Printing team have included cement-based mortars, gypsum materials and commercially available concretes. The fibre-reinforced concrete currently used contains additives to increase viscosity once printed, and improve material flow while printing. With a build volume of 2m x 2.5m x 5m the Concrete Printing machine is designed for the fabrication of panels and large building components with added value, functionality and capabilities over traditional construction techniques.

The team has recently made two major changes. It has added a printing head that can deposit soluble support material, allowing the creation of overhangs and true 3D freeform geometry. This gives the Concrete Printing technique the ability to fabricate complex geometries on a par with those common to smaller-scale 3D printing. The second change is the switch from a gantry system for moving the printing head over the build platform to a large-scale industrial robotic arm. The benefit is that the robotic arm can operate significantly faster. The robot also has six axes of movement compared to three for the gantry. This allows the system to build layers on any axis, and can significantly reduce the risk of delamination, which is a common issue with 3D printing at both small and large scales.

Why is this relevant?One can further understand the potential benefits of construction 3D printing by exploring three examples: artificial reefs, space colonisation and DfMA.

Coral reefs have declined by 50% globally over the last 27 years. Unless concerted efforts are made on multiple fronts, the extent of corals will continue to shrink. One way to restore habitat is to build artificial reefs. When these are built traditionally they tend to be simple, easy-to-form structures, that are very repetitive and do not encourage diversity. The first construction 3D printed artificial reef was deployed in Bahrain in november 2012 (Figure 11).

Conditions for development are often subject to strict environmental requirements, with the success of any bid depending on how well the environment will be managed. As the environment continues to move up corporate and government agendas, having the ability to offer solutions that are sustainable may make the difference between winning a job and coming second.

Space explorationA number of research projects have looked at building on the moon with construction 3D printing. They include a project for the European Space Agency designed by Foster + Partners based on the D-Shape™ technology, another funded by nASA for lunar settlement using the Contour Crafting™ technique and a third scheme called SinterHab, also involving nASA, which has recently appeared in the media. The first two projects are based around modifying existing construction 3D printing techniques, whereas the third focuses on only using materials and resources that are present on the moon.

SinterHab uses two resources that are plentiful at one of the moon’s poles – sunlight and moon dust. Sunlight is transformed into microwave energy that is then used directly to sinter the dust into a product similar to rammed earth. The interesting lesson here is that as man is increasingly challenged to use abundant local resources, ingenuity can find cheap sustainable solutions in indigenous materials, smart techniques and processes.

Benefits for DfMAConstruction 3D printing techniques are particularly well suited to DfMA for many reasons: the complete reliance on ‘digital definition’ for the creation of the data required for fabrication; the need (at least for now) to locate construction 3D printing machines in an atmospherically controlled environment (a factory for example); and the requirement to break down large objects for fabrication due to machine constraints. Therefore many of the requirements of construction 3D printing essentially pre-suppose the use of off-site fabrication practices.

DfMA can also benefit significantly from the use of construction 3D printing techniques, since the approach reduces the need to join many materials and elements together to form

9 – Concrete Printing Machine. (Image courtesy of Dr Richard Buswell)

10 – Wall section fabricated by the Concrete Printing team

11 – 3D model of artificial reef module designed by James Gardiner in collaboration with Sustainable Oceans international

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3D printing 43

12 – Exploded view of a lattice reinforced panel for the Exhibition Assembly, complete with vertical rebates and stepped horizontal joints. Image by James Gardiner

13 – Exploded view of the Exhibition Assembly prototype design for the Villa Roccia designed by James Gardiner. Image by James Gardiner

14 – Wax Construction 3D Printing formwork printer fabricating a panel with complex surface geometry. Image by James Gardiner

15 – 3D printed wax moulds used for complex column casting. Image by James Gardiner

Dr James Gardiner is Design Innovation Leader for the Engineering Excellence Group (EnEx.G). An award-winning architect whose work has been widely published internationally, Dr Gardiner specialises in 3D printing technologies, inventing new techniques and developing applications for its use within the construction industry. Before joining the EnEx.G he ran his own architecture practice.

Dr Andrew T. Harris is Chemical and Process Engineering Director for the EnEx.G. Based in Australia, he has moved between industry and academia throughout his career, and was formerly an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Sydney.

assemblages (Figure 13). The project illustrated in these images shows how a three-dimensionally complex house can be broken down into panels (Figure 12) for fabrication using construction 3D printing. Many of the details are based on standard pre-cast concrete details, such as stepped waterproofing profiles for horizontal joints, and baffles and gaskets for vertical joints. The difference here is that nothing is planar and every joint follows the rake of the geometry. Such complex geometries built using conventional means would require many layers of materials and onerous fixing operations. Intricate buildings like this do exist but they have historically been very expensive to build; such as the Guggenheim Bilbao by Frank Gehry and the London Aquatics Centre by Zaha Hadid Architects.

In the example shown only four materials are required to build a watertight eco-friendly structure: the 3D printed material, such as high strength fibre-reinforced concrete; steel stirrup plates and threaded dowels; a polymer for the gaskets and baffles used for sealing the joints; and a basalt foam for insulation. This example demonstrates a drastic reduction in the materials and labour required in the fabrication of the panels.

not only are these materials suitable for creating a structure, they can also be designed to perform in other ways. The concrete can be deposited to create conduits ready for wiring, the walls textured to increase acoustic performance, and materials can be optimised

digitally so that they are only placed where they are needed. This will lead to savings in weight, resources used and embodied energy.

Leveraging the best technologies in this way will make DfMA unbeatable compared to traditional construction.

Just as 3D printing is set to transform the world of manufacturing, so construction 3D printing has a promising future within the construction industry. The Engineering Excellence Group at Laing O’Rourke is leading the way in the field of construction 3D printing, through a number of projects. The first of these is the ‘FreeFAB™ – Wax Formwork Printer’ project, invented in-house, which is designed to add value to existing production lines at Explore Industrial Park (Figures 14 and 15).

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44 DfMAEEJ – 2013 edition DfMA44

The Leadenhall Building 45

There are several unusual aspects to The Leadenhall Building, currently under construction in the City of London. At 224m high it is, believes Graham Stirk of its architect Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, the tallest building anywhere to have its primary frame expressed on the outside. Its distinctive wedge shape, has led to it being dubbed ‘the cheesegrater’. And it will create generous public space in a crowded part of the city, with a five-storey-high open area occupying the majority of its footprint at ground level.

In addition to these most unique features, there are other distinctive attributes to this development. It has had an unusual stop-start history, having been mothballed with most of the substructure works complete in 2008 and then recommenced at top speed when market conditions improved. It has been used to pioneer a number of new approaches in construction, including a prefabricated floor system and the application of an ‘active alignment’ system to ensure precise steelwork fixing, as well as a trial of an RFID (radio frequency identification) system linked to BIM (building information modelling).

The Leadenhall Building

Main contributor

Andy Butler, commercial and high-end residential sector leader

Client – British Land and Oxford Properties

Location – 122 Leadenhall Street, City of London, United Kingdom

Sector – Office

Completion – 2014

Architect –Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

Engineer –Arup

Site Area – 3,500m2

Gross Floor Area – 98,000m2

Height – 224m

Storeys –52


An astonishing 85% of the building will be manufactured off-site. ‘This is the first time we had used DfMA in earnest,’ said Andy Butler, who was heavily involved at the early stages of the project for Laing O’Rourke. ‘Our whole vocabulary in the bid was different. We didn’t talk about the word ‘construction’, it was all about assembly. I have been in this industry for over 35 years and this is the most complex project I have ever worked on,’ said Butler. ‘Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners architecture is stunningly simple – but that simplicity delivers an inherent complexity.’

There were good reasons, however, for making this project a DfMA exemplar. The building occupies the entire footprint of the site, so material storage was always at a premium.

And manufacturing off-site, in addition to its other advantages, ensured materials could be delivered at the optimum time for installation into the works.

This approach also chimed with the ethos of the architecture. ‘We have always felt that the elemental approach was not just about prefabrication but about humanising an industrial approach,’ said Graham Stirk.

‘It’s amazing what industry brings and what Laing O’Rourke brings.’

To understand the challenges that all involved in the project faced, it is necessary to grasp the main features of the design and the details of the project’s history.

DesignThe main driver for this building, which replaced a tired predecessor, was a key processional route to St Paul’s Cathedral. A conventional tower would have spoiled an unobstructed view of the cathedral from Fleet Street, peeking out behind the peristyle. This was the rationale for the ‘cheesegrater’ form – angling the building kept it clear of the vital view. It did however mean that the building as it sloped down needed to occupy the whole of the entire ground plate – hence the decision to create public space below it rather than in front of it.

An astonishing 85% of the building will be manufactured off-site

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This is a generous gesture. By eliminating all but the offset core on the first five floors, the architect has created a volume that is equivalent to a net lettable area of approximately 9,300m2 of office space.

This vast open space is possible because instead of having a central core, the building has a core on the north side, housing the main circulation and risers. Toilets are also contained there, in the empty lift lobbies. At 47 lettable floors there are three banks of lifts, serving low, middle and top floors, and the design makes use of the two empty lobbies that exist at every level. By moving the toilet blocks off the main floors, says Stirk, the gross efficiency of the office floors rises from 53% to 71%, an immensely good ratio for a high-rise building.

1, 2, 5 and 7 – Digital modelling and 3D visualisation was integral to the development of Laing O’Rourke’s innovative delivery strategy

3 and 4 – An exceptionally tight footprint within a densely populated location made DfMA the most suitable solution

6 – The structure’s distinctive asymmetrical design is a response to planning requirements to maintain views of St Paul’s Cathedral

8 – The changing shape of London’s skyline: The Leadenhall Building will take its place among other landmarks as the tallest building in the square mile

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The way to achieve the objective, Laing O’Rourke was convinced, was through DfMA, through turning the site into a place of assembly rather than construction. But one of the major changes it made did not relate directly to this but to a means of ensuring the accuracy of the steelwork megaframe.

Active alignmentThe decision was made to pursue an active approach to the alignment of the steelwork, as opposed to the more traditional passive preset methodology, which would be the industry norm. As the steel frame is erected, and the vertical loads progressively increase, it ‘settles’ under its own weight and the weight of the other building elements. On The Leadenhall Building, because of its unique wedge shape, this settlement leads to an effective rotation of the frame in a northerly direction.

The passive approach to this is to design and erect the frame with presets so that it is slightly out of true, so when erection is concluded the building is in its final predicted alignment.

The floors are also made special by the fact that almost all the structure is external, with just six columns rising through the office floors.

not only does this greatly enhance the office space and its efficiency, but it makes it possible to reduce the thickness of the fire protection on the structural steel because it is separated from the office floors where the risk is greatest. The form of the steel therefore remains pure, both as a structural and a sculptural element.

The views from the building are unparalleled, and it benefits from ample sunlight, with heat gain dealt with by the triple-glazed façade with integral blinds. The façade is designed in seven-storey lifts, reflecting the megastructure that defines the building. And the plant is all in the five-storey attic, an approach that is not unusual but which in this case is particularly space efficient because of the tapering nature of the building.

Constructing the building was never going to be easy, but the stop-start nature of the project compounded the difficulties.

Construction processWith Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners appointed as the architect and Arup as the engineer, client British Land selected a construction management contractor and

began demolition of the previous building and the piling and excavation of its successor.

However, in September 2008, when it decided to halt construction, this process was not yet complete. The core was still in place, and the final (fourth) basement had to be excavated. But instead the site was made safe, a considerable undertaking in itself, and left – nobody knew for how long.

When British Land decided to restart the project, having tied up with developer, Oxford Properties and secured a major tenant for a substantial proportion of the lower levels of the office area, it sought a construction partner to give the joint venture renewed certainty. Laing O’Rourke was eager to bid for the job.

Between January and May 2011, Laing O’Rourke’s team, led by Butler together with Laing O’Rourke directors, Paul Lynchehaun and Steve Cork, examined every aspect of the job, and challenged a number of the approaches that had previously been adopted. It set out to achieve three things: surety of delivery, enduring quality and effective partnership. The approach, which Butler described as ‘micro-diligence’, employed up to 27 people in the process. 9, 10 and 11 – Concept to completion: drawing on

its digital engineering capability, Laing O’Rourke is able to optimise design before construction begins

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However, Laing O’Rourke was concerned that, despite the sophistication of the calculations, the result could be unpredictable leading to a final slight misalignment. Instead it opted for an approach called ‘active alignment’. It sought the expertise of Bill Baker at American engineer SOM (Skidmore Owings & Merrill), a world leading engineer in high-rise buildings. Baker and his team provided the technical justification of the active alignment approach.

In essence, with active alignment – which Laing O’Rourke also describes as ‘start straight, end straight’ – the frame is erected vertically and as the frame naturally rotates to the north, to compensate, the flank diagonals are tensioned to align the frame accurately within final predicted tolerances.

12, 13 and 14 – With 85% of the building manufactured off-site, Select Lifting Solutions is an integral part in the delivery of this prestigious project

CraneageLaing O’Rourke recognised that a key strategy for the success of the project was to have the appropriate craneage. The business committed during the bid process to procure and manufacture two of the world’s largest luffing cranes. ‘On tall buildings it is all about the craneage,’ Butler said. Laing O’Rourke took the decision to climb the cranes within the building, being jacked up onto succeeding megalevels of the structure as the frame was erected. This is both inherently safer and leads to a more rapid climbing process.

Having such large cranes meant that the weight of the steel sections could be optimised to minimise the number of on-site connections. For example, table elements within the north core were broken down into three, as opposed to the originally proposed five, substantially reducing crane lifts. This was particularly

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important because bringing steel to the site was a constant logistical challenge, due to there being no set-down space, and deliveries restricted to between one and five in the morning.

The steel megaframe was both heavy and geometrically complex. Due to the unique nature of the exoskeletal frame, the common benchmark of kilo per square metre was some 60-80% above what would be deemed industry norm.

The K-bracing on the corners of the office floors which provide lateral stability to the floor plates were probably the most challenging. ‘nobody understood how complex the K-bracing would prove to be,’ said Butler. ‘Fabricating and erecting these elements was extremely challenging, and all parties underestimated the time it would take.’


15 – Highly-skilled teams transform the traditional construction process into one of assembly

16 and 17 – The incredibly compact footprint becomes clearly apparent at ground level. To counter this a generous public space is created at the base of the building

Andy Butler led the bid for The Leadenhall Building and went on to become its project director. He now leads the commercial office and high-end residential sector for Laing O’Rourke.

Late startThis project was made particularly difficult because of the restart, coupled with the client’s desire, once the project got going again, to finish as fast as possible. ‘We were already five weeks behind our design schedule when we were appointed.’ Butler said. ‘And we had little or no lead in before works on-site commenced in early September 2011.’

nigel Annereau, the director in charge of the structures on the project, said, ‘You normally have a nine-month breather while the foundations are going in.’ Here, with this work already complete, work on the superstructure had to start almost straight away.

As a result, some innovations, such as the pre-cast floors (see article on page 20), couldn’t be used at the lowest levels. ‘We had to check the floor dimensions and design the shear tabs for every floor,’ he explained.

‘We could have done so much more had we had the luxury of time,’ said Butler.

nevertheless it had an enormous impact on the project. One of the guiding principles was to ‘commission first’, to think about commissioning as early as possible.

By making as many of the mechanical and electrical elements off-site, it was possible to test them individually and as sub-assemblies that were then lifted in complete. The attic, which has to house an extraordinary quantity of plant with very tight tolerances, has been designed like a giant three-dimensional jigsaw. Despite the tightness, all elements have been designed for planned replacements.

Laing O’Rourke also trialled on the lower levels an RFID system on the steelwork, linked to the BIM model, a means of identifying and tracing components that could prove invaluable on future projects.

Perhaps the most impressive element of all is that the relationships between the team have been preserved and enhanced on this very difficult project, despite or perhaps because of the demands on all involved. ‘It was brilliant because everybody just mucked in,’ said Annereau. ‘We just got on with it. It was so refreshing.’

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Dagenham Park Church of England School

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Main contributor

Steve Hearn, project leader

It may be many years before we can determine whether the gamble London took in hosting the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games has paid off. While the event itself was a success and a celebration of sporting prowess that enthused and inspired millions, the full scale of its impact on the future of the UK’s capital remains unclear.

What urban planners, economists and commentators can agree on is that a key aspect of the long-term success of the Games will be to see the investments made in east London transformed into lasting benefits for some of the city’s most socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

It is not only the Olympic and Paralympic Park that will demonstrate the significant contribution the built environment can make to the turnaround of this area. Projects like London Gateway Port are testament to the confidence that investors are showing in the capacity of the capital’s easterly areas to reinvent themselves.


Client – London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD) and Dagenham Park Church of England School

Location – London, United Kingdom

Sector – Education, School

Completion – March 2012

Architect –Allford Hall Monaghan Morris

Engineer –Arup

Site Area – 46,200m2

Gross Floor Area – 10,500m2


Massive multi-billion pound projects are not, however, the only things making a difference to this regeneration. Smaller projects also have the potential to dramatically change the life of a community.

There can be no better example of such a project than a school built to enhance both the learning experience and the social inclusion of students, staff and visitors. We are told that investment in schools and education will translate, in the long run, to a better society. This was certainly the idea behind the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

Hundreds of school projects that were commissioned through this programme were subsequently cancelled when the Cameron coalition government made the decision to end BSF in 2010. Laing O’Rourke’s Dagenham Park Church of England School was one of the last to be completed under the scheme. Had the programme not been cancelled, the firm would have had a total of nine projects in Barking & Dagenham.

The successful delivery of the school raised significant questions over the validity of the reasons given for ending BSF, which had been heavily criticised by Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove for its ‘overspends, tragic delays, botched construction projects and needless bureaucracy’.

In a challenge to this assertion, Laing O’Rourke successfully demonstrated a different way of building and thinking about schools, one that allows for high-quality assets to be erected quickly and on a tight budget. The school cost £22.6 million and was built in just 15 months, eight months faster than it would have taken under a traditional approach. The project proved a pilot for some of its approaches.

Designed for off-site fabricationThe school was designed with off-site fabrication in mind. It has an integrated façade and structural system. Laing O’Rourke manufactured the storey-high, load-bearing panels making up the façade at its Explore Industrial Park facility in England’s East Midlands. At maximum capacity, the factory could produce all the components needed to complete the construction of the school within two to three weeks. The 7.5m panels arrived on-site with three windows already fitted, enabling faster assembly and ensured the structure was watertight a mere three months after the ground slab had been laid.

Another advantage of manufacturing off-site is a reduction in the potential for accidents – Dagenham Park Church of England School was completed without a single lost-time accident. Additionally, this approach limited disruption for students, whose old classrooms were still in use while the new building was being constructed.

1, 2 and 3 – 70% of the building was constructed off-site, resulting in an incredibly fast build programme and one of the most environmentally friendly schools in the UK


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Manufactured components (70% of the building was constructed off-site) were delivered as soon as groundwork at the site was completed. The façade and structure were erected only six months after operations at the site began.

To those who believe that standardisation in architecture can only lead to sterile buildings with no character, the design that project architect Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) created for the school suggests otherwise. At the core of its plan, the new three-storey building has a mountain-like form that includes rehearsal spaces and a performance hall that seats 350 people. The school specialises in the performing arts, something that the architects and contractors clearly took into account in the design phase. The new structure will contribute to making the school a centre of excellence for the performing arts in the area.

Customisation of the building went even further with three shades of orange used on aluminium fins incorporated in the panels on the two long façades – they are used as a shield from low-angle sunlight, but they also bring colour to the structure and contribute towards the development of the school’s identity.

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To ensure the building would meet the client’s needs and brief, both Laing O’Rourke and AHMM worked extensively with the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham as well as the school’s leadership team. To enhance its brand’s recognition, the school took an active role in selecting feature furniture as well as in the design of the internal artwork and graphics. The use of local contracting organisations in this collaborative approach to the project further strengthened the partnership with stakeholders in the nearby area.

Simon Weaver, head teacher, said, ‘Throughout the design process, the team listened carefully to what we said and worked tirelessly to help us get this project off the ground and, through engagement sessions, identified the key drivers and aspirations of the teachers, students and communities to deliver a building that is not only fit for purpose but was also built within budget.’

4, 6 and 8 – The project team worked closely with teachers, pupils and the client throughout the design development to understand their needs. The result is a functional and efficient structure – instilled with a distinctive sense of character

5, 7 and 9 – A range of smart technologies was incorporated, including a high-performing building envelope featuring solar control, mixed-mode ventilation with heat recovery and a rain-harvesting system

But it’s not only the collaboration with stakeholders that made the project a pioneering effort. It also highlighted the value of an increased level of communication and collaboration between manufacturers and designers, which is the main principle behind DfMA.

James Eaton, head of pricing and digital engineering at Laing O’Rourke, said, ‘This approach improves end-user confidence in our delivery commitments. BIM and DfMA allow us to give clients an accurate schedule of installation right down to the day. The delivery plan and what actually happens are much more closely aligned’.

Standard architectureDagenham Park Church of England School could be the model against which other school projects can be benchmarked to prove definitively that spending less on construction doesn’t necessarily mean building a substandard structure and providing a less-than-ideal learning environment.

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One simply has to step inside the school to see that standardisation and good architecture can be compatible. Visitors find themselves in the school’s main social area – a spacious, full-height atrium filled with natural light where the reception, library and cafeteria are located. Look up and you see galleries on the first and second floors, from which classrooms (which sit along the building’s perimeter) are accessed.

Alan Clucas, head of business development at Explore Industrial Park, said, ‘Look at any space, whether it’s a retail outlet or a high-rise office, and you’ll see that the grids are repetitive and can be standardised. This allows our architectural partners to focus on the parts where they want to add value and improve the aesthetics’.

DfMA and public sector projectsAnother advantage of the DfMA approach to public sector projects in particular lies in risk mitigation – take your average construction site where traditional methods are in use, and then consider the amount of reworking that would be needed should anything go wrong. This is exactly the type of waste that the Laing O’Rourke’s DfMA solution aims to remove.

Connecting the design and manufacturing functions early on greatly reduces the likelihood of something going wrong. The potential problems that are highlighted in the process can be corrected before it is too late and when it is not so expensive to do so.

The design phase for the Dagenham Park Church of England School project took 12 months – throughout this period, the

10, 11 and 12 – The school’s unique identity reflects its performing arts specialism and is the result of close collaboration with staff and pupils to personalise the interior design

input of manufacturing specialists was sought and Building Information Modeling (BIM) was used to encourage collaboration with engineers and identify the best way to improve and streamline the manufacturing process.

Producing the building’s components in controlled manufacturing conditions maximised the quality while minimising waste. The concept of waste elimination demonstrates the significance of lean manufacturing principles in DfMA. Streamlining the design process was achieved by bringing together all the parties involved in delivery, from manufacturing shop floor specialists to engineers, architects and clients. In other words, identifying what the customer wanted early on, providing for a cross-functional approach to project delivery and seeing the whole ‘value stream’. Laing O’Rourke has taken into account the entire lifecycle of the building in its use of DfMA.

In line with the business’ strict targets, the team put waste reduction at the heart of the project throughout the design and construction phases – the goal was to minimise the impact on the site as well as cutting material waste. This is not just lean – it’s also green, another important credential clients are looking for these days, alongside cost efficiency.

The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham included a number of ambitious sustainability targets in its brief, including an emissions level of just 2kg CO2/sqm/year and a BREEAM ‘excellent’ rating for the site and school building. James Eaton said, ‘How a project will be delivered is not always the first

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consideration of a potential client. With current economic uncertainties, budget and programme are a much greater concern.’

Standardisation contributes greatly to the delivery of a construction process within budget, but it’s not a new idea in Britain – in the 1800s hundreds of Victorian Board Schools were built using a standardised approach.

Councils also need construction to be completed as quickly as possible, as they require schools to open in time for a new academic year if they are to meet education targets.

DfMA is revolutionising construction. This is something that is increasingly being taken into consideration by policymakers as the UK faces the challenge of building 2,000 new primary

schools over the coming years to meet the needs of its growing population. At the same time, the fact that the £2 billion Priority School Building programme has replaced the £55 billion Building Schools for the Future programme puts cost savings in the spotlight.

Dagenham Park Church of England School not only represents an exemplary implementation of DfMA – one that allowed for a speedy, safe and within-budget construction process – but also a new model that the construction industry can embrace to respond to the unique challenges the current economic landscape presents it with.

Steve Hearn became a project leader at the age of 30, and has since overseen the delivery of a number of highly successful developments – including the design and construction of Dagenham Park Church of England School. He is currently project leader for Crossness Water Treatment Works, London, United Kingdom.

Beckton and Crossness Water Treatment Works

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Client – Thames Water Location – Beckton Water Treatment Works, Beckton, London, United Kingdom

Crossness Water Treatment Works, Abbey Wood, London, United Kingdom Sector – Water

Completion –2014

Engineer –Hyder

On a clear day, a visitor to the viewing gallery of London’s Shard might just make out the twin features of the Beckton and Crossness Water Treatment Works sitting on opposite banks of the River Thames just east of the Thames Barrier. The current construction work on these twin facilities represents part of the most significant upgrade to London’s Victorian sewers since their creation in 1864.

Millions of people rely on them to treat the wastewater from their homes. The plants also play a key role in the ongoing protection and improvement of the River Thames and surrounding environment. Historically they have struggled to keep up with the demands of a city three times the size that they were designed to serve.

The existing Victorian sewage system is the legacy of engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s vision to radically improve sanitation and quality of life in London. It was designed to carry sewage and rain water together, and to overflow into the River Thames when the facilities reached capacity. The increased size of London today means that this overflow is now happening more than once a week on average at sewer overflow points along the river, including within central parts of London. Mixed with rainwater, this overflow now comprises more than 39 million tonnes of untreated sewage a year.

Thames Water has initiated the London Tideway Improvements programme to address this problem and build a new legacy for the capital. It consists of three major engineering schemes which include upgrading London’s five major sewage works, creating the Lee Tunnel and the Thames Tunnel – designed to prevent pollution entering the Thames from 35 sewer overflow points along the river.


Main contributors

Steve Hearn, project leader Crossness Water Treatment Works

Mike Macleod, project leader Beckton Water Treatment Works


The expansion at Crossness, on the south bank of the Thames, will see its treatment capacity increase by 44%, which will accommodate a 6% increase in population by 2021. It includes an overhaul of Crossness’ inlet works pumping system, eight new primary sedimentation tanks and, as at Beckton, new ASP aeration tanks and FSTs.

Together these upgrades form the lynchpin of Thames Water’s £5 billion investment to reduce the volume of sewage that currently flows into the River Thames.

Partners for innovation In 2009 Thames Water appointed Tamesis, a 75:25 joint venture between Laing O’Rourke and Dutch technical-services company Imtech to upgrade the facilities and build new capacity at both sites. The team won the project partly thanks to an investment Tamesis made in advance of the award to demonstrate that DfMA could provide unique advantages in terms of efficiency, safety and quality of work.

Building a new legacyBeckton, on the north bank, is the largest water treatment works in the UK, covering an area of almost 1 million m2, equivalent to 136 football pitches. The current project will expand its treatment capacity by 60% and accommodate a 10% increase in population by 2021. It will be able to fully treat increased sewage flows due to heavy rainfall, preventing the site from having to discharge partially-treated sewage to the River Thames. The work includes upgrading the existing plants and constructing a new activated sludge plant (ASP), incorporating six aeration tanks and 16 final settlement tanks (FST).

The expansion will also provide capacity for the treatment of wastewater diverted from sites currently experiencing significant overflow that will arrive through the new 6.5km long Lee Tunnel sewer as well as sewage from the Thames Tunnel. This is a 32km sewer proposed to be built to Beckton from West London, and is currently in the public consultation phase of application for permission to develop.

1 – Overall site layout for Beckton showing process routing for the new activated sludge plant

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To prove that a DfMA approach could deliver this project, Tamesis built a trial tank and loaded it with water. The unique DfMA twin wall construction which the Tamesis team proposed using was developed by Laing O’Rourke’s Engineering Excellence Group by a team led by Dr John Stehle. Laing O’Rourke had used the system before on water-retaining structures, but there were no examples of its use in tank applications anywhere in the world, or of its use at such a large scale for water retention.

The client was very excited by the Tamesis proposals for the use of DfMA and, following the positive results of the demonstration, challenged Tamesis to apply this approach to other aspects of the project.

Using Laing O’Rourke’s Explore Manufacturing capability, Tamesis developed DfMA solutions for the FSTs at both sewage plants, as well as pioneering the use of DfMA for the ASP aeration tanks at Beckton. Tamesis currently expects that these innovations will enable it to deliver the project ahead of schedule.

nick Fawcett Thames Water’s head of programme delivery, told new Civil Engineer magazine, ‘One of the things we’re really excited about at this site is that we have been able to explore and showcase construction innovation’.

2 – new activated sludge plant at Beckton consisting of 16 new final settlement tanks and six new aeration lanes

3 – Utilising the principals of DfMA, Abetong panels are pre-assembled off-site and arrive at site ready for installation by specialist teams

4 – A site engineer ensures the panels are installed to the required tolerances

5 – Installation of the pre-assembled Abetong panels is quicker than conventional in-situ techniques, maintains consistent quality and contributes to a safer site

Tamesis have also made major commitments to DfMA at Crossness, using it for the factory-produced elevated inlet works sections, and for the walls of the FST, and the primary treatment and aeration basins. This approach has reduced the number of workers required on site, while maintaining quality and increasing site safety and construction reliability. This has contributed to achieving a zero AFR (accident frequency rate) to date on the project.

Fawcett said, ‘By working closely with Tamesis, we’ve adopted new ways of working, which has meant we’ve saved time on the programme and kept costs down. More importantly, we’ve improved safety on-site.’

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Such an assessment can usually be made according to Eurocode specifications, but because of some of the novel detailing and uncertainty over the actual roughness of the interface, additional small-scale testing was conducted at Cardiff University and University College London as part of an engineering doctorate programme. The tests proved that the Eurocode methodology was reliable for the proposed approach, and the resulting design included adequate provision of lattice girders or stud reinforcement to serve both of these functions. Through bolts were also deployed in the trial, but post-grouting-over was considered too onerous for site usage and an alternative detail was developed.

Proving the approachIn approaching the bid, the Tamesis partners’ experience of DfMA informed a strong belief that a DfMA approach using twin wall construction could be beneficial to the Beckton and Crossness projects. However, the stringent performance criteria demanded by CESWI – the Civil Engineering Specification for the Water Industry – required crack widths to be limited to 0.2mm and for the rate of leakage to be less than a 10mm drop in water level in a seven-day period. While the crack requirement can be addressed through appropriate analysis and detailing, leakage rates are more difficult to predict theoretically. The team therefore decided to conduct a full-scale leakage and buildability test to assess the suitability of its proposed approach.

A trial tank was constructed to assess leakage performance and buildability of a variety of joint details. The prototype was approximately 9m long by 3m wide by 8m tall. The panels on one long face were constructed in a vertical orientation, and on the other side in a horizontal orientation.

The team discovered at an early stage that a critical feature of the design was the ability of vertical starter bars and horizontal splice bars to transfer their loads to reinforcement embedded in the pre-cast shells of the twin wall element. not only does an ‘offset’ lap occur that requires transverse reinforcement, but the strength of the shear interface between the pre-cast and in-situ elements also needed to be assessed.

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The trial tank was completely filled with water and leakage rates monitored. Some damp patches and cracks were observed, but these were within the acceptable criteria. Interestingly, although half the tank was provided with water bars at the base junction and the other half was not, the extent of damp patches did not correlate with the number of water bars. The use of water bars did not seem to provide any noticeable benefit. (They were however incorporated in the design later.)

The ‘drop in water level’ loss (corrected for rainfall and evaporation) was less than the 10mm criterion required over a seven-day period after the tank had been filled for a month.

Design The six DfMA aeration tanks at Beckton are arranged in two sets of three that are each 40m wide by 80m long, with 8m-tall pre-cast concrete twin walls. The aeration tank process requires an approximately uniform linear velocity flow, so a rectangular shape is required, with internal baffle walls provided to effectively lengthen the path of travel within each tank.

6 – DfMA principles in action. FST construction at Crossness showing pre-cast panels being assembled by a specialist team, requiring fewer people than the conventional approach

7 – Aeration tank construction at Beckton utilises a wide range of DfMA components including twin wall, pre-stressed baffle walls and pre-cast concrete tie beams

Each bank of tanks has a total width of approximately 120m. The total volume of sewage to be contained is approximately 144,000m3 or 144 megalitres.

The original in-situ concrete tank design in the project specification would have required a 700mm wall at its base, tapering to 525mm thick at its top. The need for such a thick wall is due to the applied bending moment, which for a cantilever varies according to a cube of the water depth.

The alternative DfMA twin wall solution was developed using the maximum overall wall thickness of 400mm available from Explore Manufacturing at the time. Clearly such a thin wall would not work in cantilevering action, so buttresses and tie beams were introduced into the design – not unlike those that support the lateral thrust of arched cathedral roofs. With this approach the wall effectively acts as a ‘propped’ cantilever and the peak bending moment is reduced by more than 50%. This efficient approach, which is better suited to pre-cast construction than in-situ, allowed the total volume of concrete in the structure to be reduced by approximately 10%.

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He added, ‘Pre-cast elements cost less, are quicker to install and require fewer people on site to install them. With concrete in particular, DfMA is also more reliable in terms of quality – in a factory environment, concrete can cure properly and harden, without some of the flaws you might get from in-situ pours in variable weather conditions.’

BenefitsThe twin wall tank system has many advantages. First, it is fast to erect. It reduces overall time on the project, as well as risks of injury because of reduced site activity. Importantly, improved quality control gives the client confidence in the long-term value of the approach. From a sustainability perspective there is less waste and significantly less mess.

ManufactureExplore Manufacturing made the pre-cast concrete twin wall panels, tie beams, walkway units and baffle wall columns at its state-of-the-art Explore Industrial Park in the English East Midlands. The pre-cast Hollowcore planks that formed the baffle walls were manufactured at BISOn’s facility in Swadlincote, also in the English East Midlands.

This was the first time that Explore had manufactured twin wall panels with embedded studs. During trial manufacture it found that installation of both studs and lattice girders within a single panel was difficult and costly. Also, turning panels caused problems of temporary stability as the shear stud connectors did not provide significant racking resistance in the temporary state. It was therefore decided that horizontal panelisation of the walls was the optimal approach where studs were required. In this way the bottom horizontal panel could consist solely of 100% studs, and the upper panels of lattice girders. Orienting the panels horizontally allowed them to be stored, delivered, handled and installed in the one orientation without the need for turning.

With regards to the roughness of the inside face of the pre-cast panels, during trials it was found that the roughening methodology deployed was unreliable, particularly since the lattice girders/studs were closely spaced and hence raking in between was almost impossible. It was decided to regard the interface between pre-cast and in-situ as ‘smooth’ in a design sense.

AssemblyThe pre-cast planks were assembled on site. Typically two twin wall panels weighing approximately 12 tonnes each were delivered per load. Push-pull props were used to align and stabilise the elements in the temporary condition. Careful set-out of the starter bars was crucial to avoid any clashes with lattice girders and studs in the panels. In this respect, studs proved to be a better solution in areas of high reinforcement congestion.

A significant amount of shuttering was still required for the joints, and the installation of splice bars proved difficult at times, particularly at corner details where it was almost impossible. However, lessons learned from this mean that better details are currently under development.

The concreting of the void between the pre-cast ‘biscuits’ forming the twin wall involved the use of a flowable concrete to ensure proper compaction, and was staged so as to limit the hydrostatic pressures to those permitted by the pull-out strength of the lattice girder/stud embedments that tie the biscuits together.

To ensure the FST tanks remain watertight once full, each panel joint was grouted and the walls post-tensioned with a system of steel cables – other products on the market merely slot the

panels together. Mike Macleod, Tamesis project director, Beckton, says that the speed of installation far exceeded what could have been achieved with an in-situ pour.

‘We can put all the walls up on a tank in one week, using only eight people,’ he said. ‘The majority of Beckton’s FSTs were erected during winter, in weather conditions such as snow and rain that would have drastically slowed or even stopped progress on in-situ concrete pours.’

Advantages for the ASP aeration tanks include health and safety benefits, with steel walkways for the tops of the tanks fitted at ground level before the panels are erected. ‘Had we used an in-situ pour,’ Macleod explained, ‘we would have had people working at a height of around eight metres to make the walkways’.

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However, some challenges remain. A significant amount of temporary works was still required. Additionally, the scale of this work means that many lessons have been learned along the way and it is clear that some details require further simplification.

Work is already under way to tackle these challenges and improvements are now being implemented on other water sector projects.

Legacy The scale of the achievement that this approach has provided to this project should not be underestimated. Macleod said, ‘This is the first time this kind of DfMA solution for aeration tanks has been applied, certainly in Europe, if not the world’.

Tamesis Crossness project director Steve Hearn also emphasises the benefits of collaboration between the Beckton and Crossness project teams. ‘Crossness started six months ahead of Beckton,’ he said. ‘A lot of knowledge about the FSTs, for instance, was transferred.’

8 – The pre-cast Abetong panels were manufactured off-site at EIP, ensuring tight tolerances could be achieved during assembly

9 – A Final Settlement Tank goes through a water test

Mike Macleod is project leader for Beckton Water Treatment Works, and specialises in the delivery of concrete sub and superstructures. Previous experience includes Heathrow T2A and Pan Peninsula, the tallest residential development in Europe at the time of construction.

Steve Hearn became a project leader at the age of 30, and has since overseen the delivery of a number of highly successful developments – including the design and construction of Dagenham Park Church of England School. He is currently project leader for Crossness Water Treatment Works.

Mark Wadsworth, operations director at in-house Laing O’Rourke business, Expanded, agrees. ‘At Beckton,’ he said, ‘we constructed the second ASP aeration tank much quicker and more efficiently than the first, as we developed the design and construction details. These changes also enhanced productivity and significantly reduced health and safety risks.’

‘We believe the two projects have challenged the thinking of our client,’ said Hearn. ‘The innovative solutions we have delivered have changed not just Thames Water’s projects at Crossness and Beckton, but also the projects they will deliver in the future. This is a really exciting time to be in the water sector as we strive to deliver safer and more efficient projects – DfMA solutions are a key enabler of that.’

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Brisbane Airport and Gold CoastUniversity Hospital Car Parks

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Brisbane Airport and Gold Coast University Hospital Car Parks

Project name – a. Brisbane Airport Car Parkb. Gold Coast University Hospital Car Park

Location – a. Brisbane, Queensland, Australiab. Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

Sector – Transport Completion –a. April 2012 b. Dec 2012

Architect –a. Hassell b. Conrad Gargett

Engineer –a. Arup b. Robert Bird

Floor Area – a. 157,500m2

b. 70,000m2

Capacity – a. 5,250 cars b. 2,300 cars

Storeys –a. 9b. 7

A pair of car parks in Queensland demonstrate a new approach to the design and delivery of such projects. Laing O’Rourke first delivered a massive multi-level car park at Brisbane Airport, and then took the lessons it had learned and refined them further on the car park at Gold Coast University Hospital.

The new multi-level car park (MLCP) at Brisbane Airport is big. Very big. At 157,500m2 and with a capacity for 5,250 cars over nine levels, it is one of the largest free-standing structures in the southern hemisphere. Adding to the scale and complexity of the project was the integration into the façade of arguably Australia’s biggest piece of public art and the incorporation of technologically advanced operating systems.

Main contributors

John McLindon,project leaderBrisbane Airport multi-level car park

Robert Fleming, project leaderGold Coast University Hospital, multi-level car park


1 – Brisbane Airport MLCP occupies 157,500m2, providing 5,250 car spaces over nine levels and is one of the largest free-standing structures in the southern hemisphere

2 – Vertical foot travel is served by 12 lifts and 10 travelators

3 & 4 – Bright, clear wayfinding and car park management systems enhance efficiency and help users easily orientate themselves in this complex nine-storey structure

The A$129 million project for the Brisbane Airport Corporation, which completed last year, required daily liaison and co-ordination between those involved. With more than 33,000 people travelling through the construction site every day to get to the busy domestic terminal, it was essential both to ensure the safety of passengers and to allow the airport to continue to operate efficiently while adhering to the construction schedule.

Construction of the structure, services, fit-out and façade works took place on several floors at once for maximum speed. This approach allowed a progressive handover of the car park to the client while work continued on the remaining structure overhead and on the perimeter roads.

Engineering excellenceLaing O’Rourke had a leading design role on the project. It worked in collaboration with the architect and structural and civil engineers, taking overall responsibility for the design of the structure, with significant input from the Engineering Excellence Group.

‘The engineering direction of the Brisbane MLCP was central to our win strategy for the project. We focused on reducing concrete volume and rebar tonnage and introduced pre-cast elements,’ said Lindsay McGibbon, area manager north. ‘The design strategies linked to the novel use of various construction methodologies undoubtedly secured us the project against some very stiff competition.’

The structure was entirely redesigned post-tender, enabling reduction of dead weight by approximately 10% compared with the original design. A new piling solution allowed the team to reduce the pile numbers from five to three

at typical pile caps. Static load testing verified this alternative design.

‘The tender design specified tie beams to restrain all pile caps because the bearing pressure was less than the 250kPa (AS1170.4) requirement,’ said Doug Russell, project manager – building north. ‘However, we challenged this requirement and our approach to omit the tie beams was verified by independent experts. The realised savings have been significant.’

Systems integrationThe integration of car parking technology and management systems was a major issue, especially when tying new systems into existing infrastructure. Comprising a number of discrete systems, which build on the basic vehicular entry/exit control system, the solution has been designed to significantly enhance the operational efficiency and reporting of the car park. These systems have the flexibility to be integrated or act individually, depending on the degree of sophistication and control required.

The vehicular entry/exit control, which comprises boom gates, entry and exit stations, pay stations and central processor/workstations is the basic building block. From there the key consideration is the number and location of the operators.

Most systems offer the ability to transfer operations to a remote site, allowing the car park to be controlled off-site. Whilst this is useful for periods of relative inactivity, it can be a common source of frustration for customers. But it is an issue which can be mitigated by integrating airport security office and operator system interfaces.

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‘Where remote control is anticipated, the experience is assisted by CCTV images which can also be shared with the remote site,’ Russell says. ‘Consideration also needs to be given to the ability to negotiate communications fire walls, network speed and compatibility of software at the remote location.’

The car park management system at Brisbane can be extended to control and manage other transportation systems at the airport, including ground transport operations – coaches, taxis, limousines, public drop-off and pick-up, hire call drop-off and more.

The choice of intercom system was another key consideration as it needed to interface with the airport telephone system and two-way radio system, the latter typically being used by ground staff enforcing parking/drop-off and ground transport operations, which includes management and interfaces around public transport, taxis, buses and customers traffic.

Technology enhancementsTo streamline operations and facilitate automation of the process a number of technology enhancements were implemented.

An automatic number plate recognition system (AnPR) allows transactions to be matched to the vehicle. This enables operators to search and identify vehicles via the number plate and accurately reconcile lost tickets. It allows automatic operation of the boom gates for authorised traffic, matching plates against a database, making it possible to identify all vehicles of interest, as well as staff cars.

Access control card readers for staff interface with the management system. This can also be used in conjunction with the AnPR system to verify the cars. To prevent inappropriate operations, there is an anti-passback control.

Smoothing the process for customers is of paramount importance. Bay availability indication, complete with interactive signage with directions to vacant bays, saves time and inconvenience. This system can also provide a check on occupancy, validating the count provided on the entry/exit system, and can track the utilisation of preferred bays. This information can then help rationalise tariffs and enforce timed parking. In addition, video analytics can allow misplaced cars in the large building to be found, potentially generating an

additional revenue stream and enhancing the customer experience.

The advanced CCTV system monitors pedestrian/vehicular points of conflict, intersections and sensitive areas, such as moving walkways, escalators and lifts. Video analytics, again, can be used to provide automatic enforcement of bays and monitor direction of vehicle movement. An alert, via SMS message, lets enforcement operators know if a car is parked or driven incorrectly.

Keeping this all together, the backbone communications system required to facilitate integration and support of the technology, is critical. The design of the cable network incorporating redundant and divergent paths allows uninterrupted operations following component failure.

Kinetic artVisually, the most striking element is undoubtedly the kinetic art façade system designed by acclaimed artist ned Kahn, which, as referenced in the design intent report, was to ‘suggest a fragment of wind-swept grassland that has been tilted in a vertical plane’.

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construction required management of multiple interface issues and multiple key stakeholders, including Queensland Health, Lend Lease, DTMR and Goldlink (the Gold Coast Light Rail PPP Consortium), whilst respecting the different safety and environmental regimes. Despite significant time pressures due to adverse weather, a complex design approvals process and other delays, Laing O’Rourke delivered a well-designed quality product on time without additional cost to the client.

‘The overall project, including design, construction and commissioning, was managed efficiently and effectively by Laing O’Rourke,’ said Don Glynn, GCUH’s project director.

‘The design consultation process with Gold Coast City Council was particularly well managed and this greatly assisted the stakeholder engagement process that Queensland Health implemented and endorsed for the project.’

He continued, ‘The Laing O’Rourke on-site project leader, Robert Fleming, managed the interface requirements with the GCUH managing contractor and engaged fully with the Queensland Health team throughout the process.’

To achieve this effect some 177,643 individual panels, each designed to freely swing in the breeze, make up the 5,000m2 façade mounted on nearly 400 frames. Add to this 21 kilometres of rail extrusions for hanging the panels and 14 custom aluminium extrusions for the façade framing and you have an intensely complex design and installation process, requiring significant collaboration with the artist during construction.

From both a design and construction perspective, facilitating ventilation requirements and accommodating the stringent tolerances for hanging the façade from the car park perimeter crash rail and balustrade system was crucial.

The installation equipment was designed to enable the façade to be installed from the inside of the car park structure. This allowed the Laing O’Rourke team to work on the adjacent road and landscape while the façade was going up, saving time.

‘The completed project is a striking addition to Queensland’s public infrastructure and an integral part of ‘Airport 2020’ – Brisbane Airport’s strategic growth plan,’ said McGibbon. ‘The end product, provides us with the foundation for a very successful business model going forwards with one of the most complex and highly integrated controls, ticketing, payment and CCTV systems of any car park we have installed.’

Transferring knowledgeBut McGibbon admits that the team saw room for improvement going into the next project. ‘The final analysis of the project, for a range of reasons, provided us with food for consideration,’ he said. ‘Our proposition for the Gold Coast University Hospital (GCUH) car park was to examine the design and

engineering issues holistically in a more multi-disciplinary way. We focused on formwork strike rate, designed deflections and considered resilient design relative to tolerances. This meant designing the structure to have more flexibility around back propping, to strike props early and free up lower level space for the installation of the façade by significantly reducing the complexity of the design. This allowed for a regular, resilient and reliable delivery programme with security of interface to the follow-on trades.’

Although the design of the Brisbane Airport car park frame was innovative, McGibbon believes that the consequences for the follow-on trades could have been improved.

‘The kinetic façade ultimately imposed load on the structure through accurately placed steel cantilevers (all core drilled in-situ),’ he said. ‘The tolerance associated with this placement and deflection exacerbated the design complexity. This was further complicated by the façade bridging a ‘flexible’ deck to stiff cores interface,’ he said.

The designer briefing for GCUH therefore considered the benefits and the lessons learned from Brisbane Airport. The team had a greater influence on the design and considered the construction solutions and potential issues further in advance.

‘On GCUH we designed the façade element to a uniform structural mode. We also designed the system to be erected from within the building and to accommodate the tolerances of the frame,’ said McGibbon.

The car park project consists of 2,300 spaces, and includes retail and support areas for the adjacent A$1.76 billion Gold Coast University Hospital (GCUH). Access and egress for

5 – natural ventilation of the open-deck car park was achieved by allowing air to flow through the building envelope, whilst providing a striking addition to the built environment

6 – A dramatic artwork by artist ned Kahn depicting wind-swept grassland, consisting of 177,643 individual aluminium panels and covering 5,000m2, provides an attractive backdrop for the airport

7 – Façade panels comprise 1,100 powder coated aluminium panels and a mix of louvres, pressed panels, slats and expended mesh elements

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Early contractor involvement in the design process ensured that the façade could be fabricated and installed safely and efficiently. Working with a specialist façade contractor and façade engineer, the Laing O’Rourke team helped design a modular façade panel with simplified fixings to provide a cost effective and safe system, which significantly improved the installation process.

The crash rail system was a proprietary system, not a project-specific engineered system, saving both cost and time in installation and allowing more efficient coordination of fixings with the structure and post tensioning requirements.

The design and construction outcomes went beyond client expectations.‘In terms of approach, I found the senior management and on-site team to be practical, knowledgeable and outcome-focused in achieving a state of the art project,’ said Scott Anderson, development manager for SurePark Pty Ltd. ‘Over and above the normal design and construction requirements, Laing O’Rourke also assisted SurePark in successfully transferring the ownership of the asset, a task which required a significant amount of time and due diligence.’

Design and construction synergyProject manager Doug Russell believes that synergy between the design and construction is critical so that methodologies, systems and techniques are effectively integrated into the design.

‘Early involvement in design by the construction delivery team is critical to achieve successful outcomes,’ he said. ‘Designing for constructability maximises efficiency and production. At MLCP Brisbane airport, we achieved 2,700m2/week for the structural frame delivery. At GCUH car park west, this approach

enabled us to successfully manage up to 4,000m2 per week, despite a severely constrained site, with only one key workface providing considerable interface and logistical issues. This was quite an achievement.’

He noted that construction and movement tolerances had a significant impact on the design solution and were a major factor in the façade; especially a custom/art feature façade like the one at Brisbane Airport.

Engagement with the car park operator and the rest of the supply chain can increase value engineering opportunities, Russell believes ‘Input from the operator may seem obvious but their early involvement throughout the design lifecycle provides invaluable information in terms of understanding how the car park ultimately needs to operate effectively,’ he said.

‘We would definitely advocate the operator supplying, installing and commissioning the car park systems, for example.’

Other key lessons learned include the importance of maximising off-site fabrication, which provided major benefits in reduced site resources, time/programme benefits and quality. The use of pre-cast stairs, for example, helped eliminate the risk of tread tolerance associated with in-situ construction.

‘The GCUH car park was delivered with a fantastic safety record, by the due date, to a great standard and with increased profitability aided by learning from Brisbane airport. Reliability through design to my mind is engineering excellence’, says McGibbon.

8 – By embedding ‘buildability’ expertise in the design process, the panels and fixings were engineered to provide a fast and cost effective installation methodology to be incorporated in the design of panel shapes and sizes, and in the detailing of fixings

9 – A detailed understanding of building tolerances allowed the façade to be designed to accommodate the cyclic loading of slabs and the movement imposed by post tensioned slabs

10 – The clever dissection of the façade into differing elements visually reduces the scale of the large, 70,000m2 structure

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1 Pre Developed Design Issue 20.05.20112 Issued for GCCC meeting 25.05.20113 Pre Developed Design Issue 07.06.20114 Developed Design Issue 23.06.20115 Developed Design Issue - Final 30.06.20116 90%DD Final 04.10.20117 For Approval 10.10.2011A Issue For Construction 05/04/2012

Robert Fleming is an accomplished project leader, with over 25 years’ industry experience. He has a particular interest in the benefits of integrated design and delivery, and has been involved in the development of a number of new off-site construction methodologies.

John McLindon has worked for Laing O’Rourke for 18 years – in both the UK and Australia. During this time he has achieved an outstanding track record in project leadership. Previous projects include the construction of a nuclear storage facility at Sellafield in Cumbria and Brisbane Airport Multi-Level Car Park.

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The challenges that face our industry will require a collaborative and multi-disciplinary approach if we are to resolve them – and the EnEx.G’s mandate is to be a catalyst for this.

Bringing together some of industry’s and academia’s most respected authorities, its principal role is to drive our innovation agenda, creating competitive advantage through the delivery of superior engineering strategies.

This unique in-house consultancy integrates seamlessly with clients, partners and project teams, examining challenges from new angles and seeking out transferable solutions from other sectors. It also participates in collaborative research and development projects through the Laing O’Rourke centres sited at our partnering universities.

To drive ongoing development, key staff rotate through the EnEx.G. This provides young engineers with specialist insight, while giving experienced project personnel the opportunity to convert their site-acquired knowledge into future innovation.

Led by experts from key engineering disciplines including heavy civils, structural, mechanical, electrical, electronic, chemical process and manufacturing, the EnEx.G has four primary roles: external advisory, internal consultancy, research and development, and education.

External advisoryAs trusted engineering advisers, the EnEx.G offers existing and prospective clients innovative solutions to specific challenges. This is a collaborative and complementary service. It generates goodwill and loyalty from customers, our supply chain, delivery partners, governments and others, including charities and not-for-profit organisations. It also allows us to seek out some of the most pressing matters facing our industry and bring together teams of collaborators to solve them.

Internal consultancyThe EnEx.G is an intellectual resource for Laing O’Rourke’s design and delivery businesses. Its expertise covers benchmark design, manufacturing and construction processes and troubleshooting operational issues. It provides thought leadership to help win major new projects through alternative approaches. It also responds to technical issues that arise on existing projects, bringing the best engineering knowledge to bear in solving them. In all cases, the emphasis is on innovation.

Innovation: research and developmentInternally, the EnEx.G manages Laing O’Rourke’s research agenda, spearheading our ambition to innovate across our target sectors and markets. This includes expanding our Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) capabilities.

Engineering Excellence Group

It also participates in research and development programmes through our partnerships with leading academic institutions. This is complemented by our more conventional commercially focused in-house research and development capability.

Laing O’Rourke also engages with universities in other countries where we operate. The role of the EnEx.G is to interact with these institutions and support research projects, ensuring they are adding value to our activities, while enabling the development of sophisticated and enlightened industry professionals.

EducationThe EnEx.G participates in Laing O’Rourke’s existing education networks and leads the development of new relationships. Acting as thought leaders, it supports the creation of stimulating education and training programmes to inspire and equip the next generation to be more radical in advancing our innovation agenda. This approach builds on the platforms that Laing O’Rourke has established with our partner universities. The EnEx.G is also involved with internal talent development programmes, such as Young Guns and Guns, building skills that will develop tomorrow’s leaders.

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Futures

Chris McKinstray received a law degree before studying mechanical engineering, and began his engineering career at Arup. His diverse background has provided him with a unique perspective on projects, combining commercial savvy with technical expertise and a keen eye for the bigger picture.

His award-winning work has included the Olympic Velodrome, the V&A museum in Dundee and the European Supergrid. His unique perspective is proving to be a winning combination, leading to his acceptance onto the Laing O’Rourke sponsored Master of Studies in Construction Engineering at the University of Cambridge.

His research at Cambridge focuses on energy futures, the decarbonisation of the power sector and increased interconnection through the European Supergrid.

EEJ What, to you, is the best aspect of the University of Cambridge masters programme?

Chris The opportunity to meet, engage with and question thought leaders from the full gamut of sectors within the industry. The course allows you to challenge widely held beliefs and see first hand how those at the highest levels are dealing with some of the greatest challenges we face. It is an unparalleled opportunity to condense years of multi-sector knowledge into a two year master’s degree.

EEJ What do you think is the most exciting trend in modern engineering?

Chris Integration and interconnection across all sectors. The benefits being more profitable projects that minimise resource waste, increase efficiency and reduce green house gas emissions. One of the most exciting trends is the opportunity for engineers to once again

take a leading role in solving some of society’s greatest challenges, which can only help enhance the prestige of our profession.

There will also be strong opportunities to realise the full benefits of DfMA and 3D printing, particularly with regard to large-scale infrastructure projects, which play a vital role in stimulating economies. This is something we desperately need in the current climate.

EEJ You are cross-disciplinary (law and engineering). Does this give you an edge on collaborative projects like the European Supergrid?

Chris I believe that engineering shouldn’t be limited to or considered as a purely technical career. Law is a subject that impacts on all aspects of life and having that background has helped me to take a more holistic approach to work, rather than just focusing on the technical aspects of engineering. It certainly helped in my risk appraisal of the European Supergrid, which looked at the political, regulatory, social and economic viewpoints of this awe-inspiring project.

EEJ Who inspires you?

Chris Other than my parents, I admire Fujio Cho, the former chairman of Toyota, for his leadership style. When Toyota became the third largest car manufacturer in the world, rather than take praise for the success of the company and sit back content, he decided they couldn’t stop there. Cho wanted to put Toyota at the forefront during his time, and he certainly did that. There is so much to learn from his approach. We live in a society driven by innovation and can no longer afford to have a reactive approach. In our industry, we have to work on the basis that change is the norm, as opposed to the exception.

An interview with

Chris J McKinstray University of Cambridge, Construction Engineering Masters Programme

EEJ What is your dream role/project?

Chris A strategic role aligning key stakeholders, hopefully focused on large-scale infrastructure and utilities projects, particularly in the energy sector. There is a huge amount of work to be done to address the delicate balance between affordability, security of supply, fuel poverty and the long-term move towards more energy-efficient pathways. I would love to play a part in this and work toward developing strategies that effect positive and beneficial change in society, no matter how small.

EEJ You mentioned being paired with a great mentor at Cambridge. Who is this, and how have they helped guide you in this stage of your career development?

Chris At the start of the course I was paired with Dr. Azad Camyab, who has helped to steer my thoughts and feed my interest in the energy sector. It has been a great partnership. We have presented conference papers internationally and were recently highly commended in Vienna at the Power-Gen Europe conference. We share similar views of the industry and appreciate the particular technical, political, commercial and financial risks/nuances that exist.

“We have to work on the basis that change is the norm, as opposed to the exception.”

In this feature we talk to the engineering leaders of tomorrow about what inspires them.

lor engineering excellence journal 2013

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