Week Ending 8th July 2012

The Government has abandoned the pre-2010 policy of trying to encourage house building through regional house building targets and instead house building is being encouraged through the New Homes Bonus, allowing the local authority to retain revenue from the council tax of new houses for six years.

The Government published the final version of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in March stressing the need to encourage housebuilding but retaining the need for planning authorities to provide enough land for a rolling five years supply whilst adding the new requirement of an extra 5% "to ensure choice and competition in the market for land".

Although research in June 2011 suggested a major reduction in housing targets, especially in the South East And South West, here at JMS we certainly seem to be bucking the trend with the appointment for the design of the roads, drainage, foundations and superstructure on over 500 housing plots in June alone.

Planning has finally been achieved for the new hotel in Cambridge in which we carried out the preliminary designs at the beginning of the year. This hotel incorporates a large underground car-park and a concrete podium first floor deck with timber framing over. Due to the client's timetable, the design is being shared between our Midlands and Anglia office. This is the third hotel undertaken for this client with the first up to podium level in Ipswich and the Winchester project ready for tender.

Work load in the London sector is expanding faster than ever with a wide variety of work including three Synagogues, two mosques, refurbishment of the Muslim World League HQ building, new students bar for Anglian Ruskin University, two £5m+ houses in Hampstead Heath, apartment blocks, house extensions.....

Week Ending 24th June 2012

I have over 30 years of experience in the construction industry, my colleagues and employees all receive regular training and guidance, we employ an independent Safety Consulting firm but yet, before we are allowed to design a foundation or drainage scheme for a client (who no doubt has the same experience and awareness of construction  health & safety issues as ourselves), we still have to submit, for review, by a ‘qualified’ H&S  consultant, our procedures  on how we lift objects in the office! I am all for H&S in the work place and on site but for goodness sake, take a step back, take the blinkers off and get in the real world – anyway, I can see my wife struggling up the garden path with the grocery shopping – perhaps I should tell her to only carry two bags at time so she doesn’t put her back out otherwise how will she do the ironing!

Fire damaged project at Essex has finally ‘topped out’ after nearly two years. As a Grade Listed building, Conservation officers have been ‘interested’ from the start which has had to be balanced with the Client’s desire to squeeze as much accommodation into the apartments as possible. Anyway, all parties seem to be happy.

It seemed to be a week for housing and apartments as, following on from the appointment last week for the design of 120 houses in Hatfield we were appointed this week for 37 apartments in Kilburn, 24 houses in Lincolnshire, the design of a new, four storey concrete framed apartment block in London and the addition of four flats above an existing Working Man’s club in Edmonton. The highlight, however, must have been driving for two and half hours in the pouring rain in order to look down a hole with five others!

Week Ending 17th June 2012

Good week – started on a high and ended on a high. On Monday we found that we had been successful in our bid for the design of a new multi-million pound distribution centre in Bury St Edmunds and then on Friday we were appointed, out of the blue, as the Structural Engineers for a large apartment block in Northampton. This latter one is particularly pleasing as the client appointed based on our previous performance and didn’t even ask about our fee scale!

 Recently Completed Distribution Warehouse - Sudbury

Had a meeting mid week with the owner of a large manufacturing business of the SIPs (Structural Insulated Panel system) who we have being working with for the last three years. As they are looking double production over the next year, we discussed methods simplifying the design process as well as specifying a regime of testing for them. Unfortunately, few of practicing architects are aware of SIPs let alone the benefits of building in this modern material – luckily we are and I have even built my own garage from the stuff!

 My 'DIY' Garage

Quarry inspections still form a significant part of our work load with us providing nationwide training workshops for site managers and undertaking specific site inspections on a biannual basis - more often when vehicle impact or similar has arisen. Usually the plant is initially designed for a twenty year life but invariable the kit is modified or moved resulting in its life extended by at least twice this.

Week Ending 10th June 2012

Obviously, a significant part of the week was taken up with the bank holidays and the Queens Jubilee celebrations. Soner, from the London office braved the weather on Sunday and managed to get a good vantage point and some cracking shots of the Royal Barge complete with a decent London backdrop.

Meanwhile, back in the office, the week continued with the normal humdrum designs and details for roads, sewers and buildings which make up the staple diet of the consulting engineer. We did, however, manage to secure the appointment on a 120 house development in Hatfield with a new (national) client providing the designs for both the infrastructure and foundations. Should be an interesting one with a cut & fill exercise and foundations varying from standard trench fill through to piles, rafts and vibro.

On a smaller scale, once again we were called in to provide advice on how to improve on the inadequate temporary works being used on site. Although our staff spent Wednesday morning on a CDM refresher training course, it still appears that, when it comes to site, the rules, regulations and guidance continue to be ignored! On this one, two party wall surveyors, threat of high court legal action, police involvement and a dangerous structure notice all thrown into the mix.

Week Ending 3rd June 2012

Carrying out a structural inspection on Monday and once again came across the dreaded ticked box of the mortgage surveyor asking for a damp report. As always, this surveyor proudly puts after his name RICS which I would have thought would give him some insight in to why there are damp problems in a 300 year old house! Surely they should start taking a bit more responsibility for their job than just shifting the ‘problem’ onto a damp proof company who will invariably include somewhere in their report ‘provide an injected damp proof course’. That is not addressing the problem and almost never needed.

Inundated this week with small domestic designs varying from single beams for ground floor extensions through to complete re-builds. I believe more thought has to go into these smaller projects than the large as they are often fiddly and the clients invariably want the impossible and want their house to, in effect, to be the Tardis!

Managed to squeeze this basement extension below a five storey

structure with minimal downstands and no protruding columns

in order to keep to the client's brief for clean lines

The multi million pound refurbishment of Middlesex House, Wembley is virtually complete with the new cladding glinting away in the sunshine. Let’s hope its new cladding is waterproof after now the summer seems to be already over. Having saved the client almost £200k in re-designing the steelwork from the original proposals (designed by others I hasten to say), my initial reservations that the 15 storey saw-tooth feature on the side would look ‘odd’ I think the architect knew what he was doing.

Week Ending 26th May 2012

We have been involved with a lot of structural art over the years varying form a man made from (metal) hands, a toy tug boat that stands 6m tall and metal trees that now stand in the middle of a Las Vegas casino.

However at the end of last week, we got blindsided by a client who wants an island; not any sort of an Island but a Pirate based island complete with rickety old houses, stone jetty, palm trees and even a large skull with a waterfall coming through its mouth! Following an appointment we are waiting for the completion of pumping out 13 million gallons of water from the lake so that we can send the surveyors in order that the earth movers can remodel the lake for both the island and to increase the depth of the lake by 1.5m which should be sufficient for the pirate ships to float!

With the construction of the high bay waste handling facility at Gt Blakenham now complete the machinery which sorts and recycles the rubbish has been installed. These bits of kit are mammoth in size and we have been providing the designs for the support of such machinery across the UK and Europe due to the 3D functionality of the design software we use. The latest one is the interestingly named ‘Left Hand Trisomat Flip Flop screen’ – no idea what it does but it’s a great name.

Week Ending 19th May 2012

First visit of the week was to inspect the newly constructed underground car park for a small apartment block in Leicestershire and I am pleased with the outcome which was designed with FE Analysis for the irregular shape and large open spans. Unfortunately NHBC won’t adopt the project because the basement wasn’t specified to be waterproof which we (client, architect and ourselves) pointed out that there was big open door at the front, three large smoke vents open to the elements and wet cars driving in and out!

Met with a new client in Stamford Hill regarding a new basement under his house and he then took me off to a Social Club he had just bought in Edmonton Green where it looks like we can build 8 new flats over. It will be a bit of a long slog with the planning but the returns should be pretty impressive for him once it goes.

Met with the owner Artfabs who is carries out large metalwork sculptures to discuss a new piece he has been commissioned for. Whilst I was at his workshop we inspected a recent piece we had designed which was 75% complete but it did seem to be oscillating a lot in the wind which didn’t look right. It turns out that the client didn’t want to include the high level restraint we had specified as it detracted from the look!

Interesting chat with a potential new client on Thursday who wants a Pirate’s Island built in the middle of his lake complete with a waterfall though a skulls head! Arranged for a meeting on Monday to discuss in detail.

Jim’s model of the underwater diving experience now proudly hangs in the office.