GILLIAN HORN’S DIARY

I’ve been on site a lot recently.  But with six weeks to opening and the building not yet water tight, everyone involved in the project has been.

It’s exhilarating to say the least. Thankfully we’re not the culprits, so it’s not a case of unnecessary, life-diminishing, claim-minded correspondence distracting the team from production, but we are still drawn into the ramifications of this tight, fast-track programme.

The rooflights were due to complete this week, closely followed by windows, cladding and, once scaffold struck, external works.  Inside there’s still the raised floors, finishes, decs and second fix M&E, not to mention the FF&E and IT.  But the contractors run a tight ship, charted by post-it notes in full colour spectrum. Each trade has a colour, each day a task and each week the programme adjusts according to how the post-its move.  For some, days are getting longer and weekends shorter.

There’s no room for error, but life being what it is and humans being who we are, there are of course errors. The question is spotting them, seeing how big they are and assessing the consequences quickly enough to rectify them.

It means both site presence and trust are needed to have a chance of success. So this week: rooflights too small, for which nothing can be done at this stage save an unfortunate piece of boxing-out. Steels the wrong colour choice when seen in steely-flesh reality. An emergency escort to Travis Perkins for alternatives was certainly beyond the call of duty for a stressed site manager with other things on his mind than colour, but a clear indication of a good relationship. This is the uplifting bit of a novated appointment; the coming-together-in-the-face-of-adversity spirit as opposed to the dispiriting alternative of if-I’m-going-down-I’ll-take-you-with-me mindset. With some confidence and an open mind, coupled with a bit of empathy and respect we can each try to accommodate the other’s position; sanguine to the necessary compromises. 

Yes, of course you lose the control of the traditional contract administrator but you gain the possibility of a team-based relationship through which different means are deployed to get what you want in lieu of the formal Architects’ Instruction. And I’ll admit, this time I didn’t really miss writing them.

Gillian Horn is a partner at Penoyre & Prasad