Last week saw building sites up and down the country forced to close due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, but thankfully that doesn’t mean work has ground to a standstill at Doig+Smith, with many of our projects comfortably placed in the pre-construction stage.
We caught up with our Senior Project Manager Craig Hepplewhite to discuss how work on the Allander Leisure Centre continues to progress in this current climate.
Craig comments “The Allander Leisure Centre Project is in a great position. With RIBA Stage 3 (Developed Design) complete, all site surveys have already been carried out and end stage reports are due out soon. There will be no pause for client approval, therefore the Design Team has all the information it needs to proceed with Stage 4 (Detailed Design).”
Last week Craig chaired the first virtual project meeting via Microsoft Teams, and though there were 16 attendees, it ran very smoothly. Craig began the meeting by welcoming everyone and establishing some ‘house rules’ including use of the ‘mute’ function when you’re not speaking to minimise background noise and improve overall sound quality.
Craig continues “One of the great things about this type of meeting is the ecological benefits it brings. Carbon footprint is lowered from avoided travel, and paper print outs are avoided with drawings instead being shared on screen that can be easily ‘screen-shotted’ and marked up by participants.”
Though the use of video conferencing technology is becoming wide-spread under the current circumstances, Doig+Smith has in fact been working in this way for many years, facilitating project meetings where there is a geographical separation from the site or its project team members. All our staff are comfortable working in this way and do so with the utmost efficiency.
The next virtual project meeting on the Allander Leisure Centre will be a Design Team meeting hosted in partnership with Architects Holmes Miller.