Cambridge House: Case Study Transcript

My name’s Sam Maguire. I’m a project manager for Deconstruct, and I’m responsible for looking after Building Three in the Cambridge House project.

We’re doing a 20-metre bulk excavation and we’ve got four levels of a basement coming back up.
We started propping at capping beam level, did a slight reduced-level dig, then we’ve got levels one, two, and three, followed by a fourth level.
We construct the basement raft slab, and then as we’re coming back up with the RC frame, that replaces the need for the temporary works.

My name is Anibal Fernandez, and I’m project engineer for Deconstruct.
I started working with Conquip nearly a year ago.
It was very easy — all the information was provided, and every time I needed extra information, or vice versa, communication was great.

When we first started checking the temporary works, we had a few points that we needed to change.
For example, we had penetrations through the capping beam, so we needed to come up with another idea of propping.
We had to use a waling beam to transfer all the load in.

We didn’t stop working through the lockdown.
Conquip was always ready online to arrange meetings and sort out any problems or questions that we had.

My name is Charlie. I’m one of the mechanical design engineers at Conquip.
I generally work on big projects like this, helping right through from the initial design to when everything’s installed on site.
This is probably one of the biggest basement propping jobs that we’ve worked on.

We’re delivering all four levels of props and the excavator platform, all in a very short time frame.
The reason we’re using an excavator platform on this project is so we can achieve the bulk excavation using a telescopic clamshell excavator, loading into the tippers from street level.

One of the design features on the excavator platform was access hatches to gain access to the inclinometers.
We were able to fabricate the entire platform in our workshop before getting it delivered here.
That enabled us to iron out any small issues, and one of the guys who normally works in our fabrication workshop actually came to site during delivery and was able to answer any questions, because he’d already seen the full installation of the platform.

It was pre-assembled — it was like a Lego piece.
Straight away, it clicked in.
It took us six days, and on Monday the machine loading the lorry was operative.
Perfect timing. Fantastic.

It’s been really useful getting to come out on site.
First of all, getting to meet the site team and make sure everything was a smooth transition from being on my computer screen to being installed on site.
On a project like this, it was really helpful using video tools to present exactly how it was going to be installed.

It’s very easy to sit behind emails, but getting to meet someone face to face and talk to them really builds the team spirit we want on a job like this.
It really feels like a team.

They try to make our life easier on site.
We know how hard it is fixing props and how heavy they are.
Small pieces, length of the prop — everything was considered before sending anything to site.

It’s been a good working relationship between Deconstruct and Conquip.
We’ve had good site visits from the operations side, the structural side, and the design side.
If there were any issues or challenges, Conquip were always willing to come in, sit down with us, and work as a team to get through it.