Wheatstone House, Kew
KEY FACTS
Customer: London and Quadrant Housing Trust
Value: £35 million
Start Date: September 2016
Completion Date: August 2019
Overview: 150 private sale apartments, commercial, residential and basement car parking
L&Q Group appointed Claritas as Pre-construction Manager and Cost Consultant to complete a detailed pre-purchase feasibility report and to manage the RIBA Stage 4-5 design post purchase.
As the site was a decommissioned BT exchange there were many underground risks to be mitigated and managed directly with BT.
The site was a decommissioned BT exchange with live data and fibre optic service ducts running across the site that were to be maintained during and post construction.
Claritas appointed the pre-construction team and worked with BT to amend the consented scheme in order to mitigate construction and on-going risks associated with the fibre optic data network.
The redesign of the scheme resulted in a more efficient basement design that provided an increased number of parking spaces but did not impact on the BT assets whilst reducing construction costs.
The first-floor structure was raised and cantilevered so that the piling and associated ground works did not impact on the BT assets.
Claritas developed the construction programme in line with procuring the key packages (RC, ground, frame, M&E, etc) to allow L&Q construction to commence work concurrently with the land purchase.
