Bold Thinking Wins Big U.K. Office Project

By Peter Reina

	Photo by Yves Chanoit

Demolishing three vacant office towers turned out to be the key element in delivering a massive $560-million design-build-finance-maintain project now being built for the U.K.’s Ministry of the Interior. The center London project removes a public eyesore while providing new office space for 3,000 workers.

Contractor influence over the new headquarters of the British interior ministry, known as the Home Office, has been very extensive because the builders also were largely responsible for delivering the original concept. As a result, an unobtrusive cluster of buildings on Marsham Street now is emerging from the site where, for nearly 40 years, three harsh, 20-story, slab-shaped towers rose, which critics said blighted a desirable cityscape.

Designed by architect Terry Farrell & Partners (TFP), London, the new $310-million Home Office development stretches for about 200 m in a generally low-rise area close to historic Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. In bulk and height the new towers are more sympathetic to mixed-aged neighboring offices and apartment buildings than its predecessors.

The three buildings will house civil servants now dispersed but centered at Queen Anne’s Gate, a 10-minute walk away. Built around spacious atria, the roughly equal size buildings together will provide nearly 54,000 sq m of space on eight levels, including two below ground. They will be integrated by two sets of stacked, enclosed footbridges forming "streets" along the development’s length.

The Home Office agreement requires London-based Anne’s Gate Property plc (AGP) to finance, design and build the project in 34 months, ending early next year. AGP also will control maintenance for another 26 years for roughly $250 million at today’s prices.

Paris-based Bouygues Group is a minority shareholder in AGP but its U.K. construction division is fully responsible for the design-build element. Its London-based affiliate, Ecovert FM Ltd., will handle long-term operation of the buildings and maintenance. AGP is 80% owned by the large U.K.-based bank HSBC plc, which financed the project.

	Footbridges link buildings by forming 200-m-long internal "streets" throughout the project.

Procurement of the buildings began just over seven years ago when the Home Office invited negotiations with contractors. The original plan was to refurbish the existing headquarters in Queen Anne’s Gate. Bidders submitted their final offers in late 1998, but the procurement was stalled by AGP’s audacious alternative plan. Instead of working with the existing building, AGP urged the government to relocate to the Marsham Street site.

Too costly to restore, the towers had been abandoned by government departments. As empty eyesores, the towers’ removal appealed to the government, which accepted AGP’s proposal. But for fairness, the Home Office gave other consortia the chance to bid on the option.

AGP had an advantage over rival bidders because its architect had studied alternative uses of the unwanted towers a few years earlier, says Giles Martin, TFP’s project design director. Still in March 2000, AGP began a tough competition against a single rival, emerging victorious four months later, says Jean-Marc Arlot, Bouygues U.K.’s deputy managing director.

A long period then followed while AGP and officials negotiated details of the contract and obtained outline zoning and building permits. At the same time, HSBC, supported by Bouygues, assembled the financing. All of the various strands came together in March 2002 when contracts covering all aspects of the deal were finally signed.

During bidding, a commercial team at Bouygues’ Paris base had taken the building’s design far enough to establish robust prices. Meanwhile, "the Home Office had its own team of architects working with [the contractors] to ensure we got a sensible standard," says Chris Rust-D’Eye, the ministry’s senior project manager. As a government office, the design standard had to be good, but not lavish. "You don’t have marble floors, [but] you have stone," he says.

With contracts signed, the design team center moved to London and a second Bouygues team emerged simultaneously to manage construction. "The key people in the construction team have been in my organization from day one," says Juan-Carlos Pinedo, the contractor’s design manager. Led by Pinedo, the design team includes TFP, supported by specialist firms. Pell Frischmann & Partners, which had been co-developer at the start, handled structural design. Electrical and mechanical designs are by the London-offices of Flack & Kurtz and Battle McCarthy Consulting Engineers & Landscape Architects. And the facilities manager, Ecovert, has been "more than a contributor" in the design development, says Bouygues’ Arlot."They have a strong voice...about the whole-life costs. It’s about optimizing the design. Facilities management is a key element in the process," he says.

	New Home Office facility takes shape in neighborhood that includes Westminister Abbey and Parliament.

Bouygues also strove to include ideas from prospective subcontractors. "We developed the designs for two or three months after [contract signing]," says Pinedo. "Then, subcontractors were appointed and we developed the design [further] with their input and prices were adjusted accordingly," he says.

One of those subcontractors was Shepherd Engineering Services Ltd., Windsor, which handled mechanical and electrical installations. "We had the opportunity to influence what was going into the working drawings, certainly to the benefit of the program," says TFP operations manager Mark King. "It wasn’t only us in Bouygues’ office, but all the major subs."

Among the ideas adopted in the value-engineering phase was modular wiring. Though more expensive to buy, the wiring arrived precut to length with plugs attached. "It really has saved time and reduced the work force we need on site," says King. Another innovation was the use of flexible hoses to ceiling-mounted fire sprinklers, he adds.

	Facade design changes cost nearly $2 million.

While the construction team refined designs, the Home Office continued tweaking plans as user needs became better understood, says Rust-D’Eye. Bouygues’ Pinedo counts over 100 design changes after the contract was signed. Last summer, "we said that if we wanted to complete on time, we needed to put a stop to further changes," says Pinedo. "All the changes have been managed jointly to ensure the budget and program will be met."

Modifications to the facade costing nearly $2 million were among the most visible owner-driven changes. In the planning approval process, the original scheme failed to impress the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, which is funded by the government to promote good building design. The architecture had been "pared down" says TFP’s Martin. "What was really missing was the joy that comes from a big public building." Terry Farrell’s solution was to recruit London and New York City-based modern artist Liam Gillick to work with the facades.

One of Gillick’s ideas was to have huge letters etched into dark, opaque panels between the facade bays. He also added a colorful, roof-level canopy along the main elevation. Gillick "has taken the whole facade along 200 m and treated it as a single entity," says Martin.

Numerous internal changes also emerged. For example, extra money was spent on the main "street" running through the three buildings via footbridges. More wood finishes and brighter colors are being installed to make the 200-m-long thoroughfare potentially less oppressive, notes Martin. And cheerful egg-shaped pods replace more austere rectangular meeting rooms.

There have also been more utilitarian enhancements. Raising the buildings defenses "came as a result of 9/11," says Pinedo. Security improvements include the addition of search bays at the vehicle entrances and of bollards around the development’s perimeter to halt rushing trucks, he says.

Formidable Footprint

After site work began, "the only problem we had was with demolition," says Jean-Pierre Bousquet, Bouygues’ project director. The old buildings contained two World War Two bunkers with 5-m-thick concrete walls that defied mechanical destruction. The team was forced to weaken the concrete with blasting. The $20-million demolition contract started in April 2002 and lasted three months longer than the 14 months originally allotted, says Bousquet.

Construction finally began early last year in the 4-to-5-m-deep pit, with Bouygues retaining the original walls and base slab below ground. The new structures are detached from the old concrete with drains in the intervening voids to catch any water leaks. Rising out of the pit, the buildings are framed in reinforced concrete, with cast-in-place walls and columns and precast beams and slabs. The main elevations are clad with curtain walls, while more economical windows penetrate perimeter concrete walls in less obvious areas.

Unusual for the U.K., the fully air-conditioned buildings will use heat pumps on all floors to extract and reuse heat, says Neil Pixsley, Bouygues’ senior manager for electrical and mechanical system. "From an energy point of view, you cut down on your chillers," he says. To ensure that key structural workers were familiar with Bouygues’ methods, the firm imported about 260 of its regular operatives from France. The firm relies heavily on precast concrete for slabs and beams and uses steel rather than timber-faced formwork, says Bousquet. When it came to buying precast concrete, he was surprised to find a Belgian supplier underbidding local rivals.

Structural work now is done and the focus is on cladding and internal work. Having started its $36-million electrical and mechanical installation contract last September, Shepherd Engineering is on course to handing over the project this November. With most construction uncertainties now eliminated, Rust-D’Eye estimates the extra cost of all the change orders at about $18 million, which he believes is modest for a project of this size.

The procurement approach used on the Home Office project transfers more of the risks to the contractors than simple design-build, says Rust-D’Eye. While the owner is charged with securing zoning permission, for example, the contractor must negotiate all of the resulting details. And while on design-build, "you have quite an integrated approach in terms of design development, here, the risk stays with AGP," he says.

The author lives in London. He is ENR’s long-time European correspondent. He also regularly writes the In The News pages of Design•Build Magazine.

All photos by Peter Reina for Design Build

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