Casey Deller – Vocational Day #1 – Hosted by Simon Byford
Civil Engineer and Project Manager at Sir Robert McAlpine. Simon is the PM (note: an award
winning PM) for a 53 Million Pound construction project at the Edinburgh
International Conference Center. The project includes the addition of a 150ft x
120ft convention space featuring sound proof partitions and a floor that can
raise and rotate at 1 meter intervals for varying seating styles. The convention center, 2 floors below grade,
is structurally independent from the 8 floors of commercial office space
above. Also featured is a car elevator
to executive parking 3 levels below grade and a modern turntable to turn
tractor-trailers to pull in underground before being rotated to allow to back
to the docks. It was a very interesting
day learning the similarities in the design/build process in Scotland and
comparing it to the processes in the USA.
Interesting concept: Edinburgh
requires that on major construction projects, 10% of the workforce must be
hires from local unemployed sectors, a move to boost employment and apprenticeship
training experiences.
Casey Deller – Vocational Day #2 –
Hosted by Bill Burr of CHAP Homes. Bill
is from CHAP Homes, one of Scotland’s leaders in residential development, as
well as engineering, general construction and other related activities. The Eco Village is a unique
project in it’s simplicity. CHAP owns
and operates a surface quarry. At the
end of the quarry’s life (5 years) rather than restoring it to medium-quality
farmland, they intend to develop a new community of varying density residential
uses, commercial, public (schools, park), all with a sustainable, green
approach. Interesting concept: Scotland requires that all residential
developments provide for a mix of home pricing. The thought is that by mixing
low income housing with all other sectors, there will be no areas of extreme
poverty and economic decay.
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