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Chartered Institute of Building Overall Gold Medal Building Manager of the Year Award 2002
Dublin Airport 6 Bay Extension & Basement - €114.5m
This project presented many challenges to McNamaras 20 strong management team at the airport.
The construction of the basement, one of the largest in the country, presented both significant engineering and logistical challenges. As the basement was 9m deep and immediately adjacent to the existing terminal building very complex temporary works solutions were required to ensure the integrity of the terminal building and the surrounding apron during the excavation works. The logistics required to remove the 58,000 m3 of earth from site via designated routes across the airfield as well as bringing to site and placing the 10,000 m3 of concrete were extremely involved.
The main terminal extension itself presented a significant programme challenge. It involved the erection of the main structure in a 16 week period, which consisted of 4000 tonnes of structural steel and 22,500 sq m of precast planks. This was achieved by working 24 hour shifts, erecting the steel structure during the day and placing the precast planks at night, with the entire site floodlit to accommodate these operations. A further significant aspect of achieving the tight programme for this phase of the contract was the co-ordination of the €36 million services installation into the tight building programme. Phase 1 was completed on programme in July 2000.
Phase 2 and 3 of the project were particularly difficult due to the fact that the majority of the old facility had to remain operational during the construction programme due to the increase in passenger numbers and the shortage of available capacity until such time as the entire project was complete.
The challenges of Phase 2 and Phase 3 were largely overcome by exhaustive planning by McNamaras Construction Team, ART - the Project Managers for the project and the Design Team headed up by Henry J Lyons Architects for the project.
Basically what emerged from this planning exercise was a highly complex jig-saw of possession and handover dates to facilitate both the completion of the Construction programme on time and at the same time, providing Dublin airport with the necessary facilities to function during this period.
The complex agreements reached on possessions and handovers involved both sides in onerous commitments. This included McNamaras achieving 28 phased completions of fully commissioned isolated areas during this period, which eventually merged to form the completed jig-saw, “the New 14 Bay Terminal Building”.
The above programme was achieved by carrying out the majority of the works at night to allow the floor areas to be used by Airport operations during the day. This meant that construction activities normally commenced after the last flight departed and concluded prior to the first flight arriving.
At the Project Supervisory Construction Stage, McNamaras had to produce and implement a very comprehensive Health & Safety Plan for the project and continually monitor and review same to deal with the many high risk activities associated with this development where large scale construction activities had to proceed hand in hand with the public use of this very busy facility.
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