Commentary
Partnership done right: University of Salford’s SEE Building
It’s difficult to over-emphasise the importance of working with contractors who have experience of collaborative projects and an intuitive feel for your wider goals, writes Jason Challender of the University of Salford.
The University of Salford has always placed an emphasis on working collaboratively and leveraging partnerships. It’s an approach that delivers benefits for our students, as well as the wider regional economy and it’s further evidenced by our university-wide industry collaboration strategy.
When it comes to the design and construction of new buildings on campus, we seek out industry partners who share our collaborative ethos.
This was an essential requirement for contractors appointed on our £65m Science, Engineering and Environmental Building, known as the SEE Building – a flagship facility for the university and our biggest building project in more than a decade.
Situated in the heart of the university’s main campus, this newly completed discovery and innovation hub is home to academic departments across the built environment, science, computing and engineering.
The four-storey, 166,800 sq ft building will facilitate cutting-edge projects. Given its innovative focus, we wanted to harness green technology in the SEE Building’s development.
Selecting a construction industry partner that would work with us in achieving all of our required objectives was vital.
Accordingly, we procured the project via the North West Construction Hub framework because of their strong collaborative ethos and commitment to social value. Morgan Sindall Construction was the winning bidder.
Shared vision
Morgan Sindall Construction was already working in partnership with us, helping to deliver a programme focused on enhancing the employability credentials of undergraduates by combining the latest academic understanding of industry trends with real-world experience and learning.
Morgan Sindall Construction’s experts have organised regular site visits, workshops and lectures for our students. They have also provided expert advice on project proposals for design, planning, costing and development to multi-disciplinary student teams.
The relationships between our two organisations already had solid foundations and they have grown even stronger with the successful delivery of the SEE Building.
Early engagement
By working closely with the Morgan Sindall Construction team from the very outset of the project, we could anticipate and address challenges together. Morgan Sindall Construction led us through the pre-construction phase of the development, innovating at every step to value engineer without compromising on quality.
We thoroughly embedded the philosophy of partnering and collaboration. A lot of lip service is paid to these concepts, but our relationship has truly been built upon trust. It was founded on the premise of open budgets and coming together early to put problems on the table, saying, “that’s what we’ve got, how are we going to get there?” and then trusting each other in that pursuit.
As a result of this early engagement and positive collaboration between all project partners, work on the development started on schedule, to budget, with key milestones and targets being met – even when pitted against the obstacles produced by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Close communication
Stripping away the us-vs-them dynamic reaps major efficiency benefits for building projects. From the outset of the project the university team and Morgan Sindall Construction’s team worked as one.
The university campus was fully accessible to Morgan Sindall Construction and their supply chain – catering, leisure facilities, parking – everything.
We all co-located in the same office so communication was ongoing. We held structured meetings when required, but on a day-to-day basis we worked together as one team. This ensured a shared sense of purpose and free flow of information.
Seamless handover
Involving facilities management in the project team from the beginning should make the handover stage a lot smoother. Our facilities management team is relatively small and we didn’t want them to feel overwhelmed. Morgan Sindall Construction was able to involve them throughout the construction process, so they could fully understand the building’s workings before taking it over.
Leading-edge facilities are huge investments for universities, so working closely with construction partners to get them right the first time is invaluable.
This coming month, we will be proud to open the SEE Building, an outstanding new-build environment which is 100% electric-powered and underpinned by sustainable, intelligent design. Because the team tailored each level of the building to accommodate different uses, we also have an extremely flexible space – moulded by the shared expertise and experience of our team members.
Collaboration has formed the building and will take place in its labs and shared spaces every day. Our partnership with Morgan Sindall Construction will go on. Partnering doesn’t end when the project does. Longer term relationships built on a shared philosophy offer the strongest advantages.
- Jason Challender is director of estates and facilities at the University of Salford
- Produced with the support of Morgan Sindall Construction
A great example of true collaboration between people from different organisations, sharing a common goal. Culture and behaviors in teams is fundamental to performance as it enables challenges and hurdles to be overcome in a positive way. Great job! Well done to everybody involved.
By Barry Roberts