Guess who’s back!

Hello readers, today was very exciting. My university organised a filed trip for my class to visit a construction site in Brighton and have a guess which one they picked! Today I got the opportunity to visit the hillside construction site and and was taken on a tour by both the project manager Jason Clarke. He was very informative and was able to tell us all about the site.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was slightly disheartened by the progress carried over the Easter break however today I found out a lot more information regarding this. Firstly, I found out a lot more detail concerning the concrete floors and it turns out that the concrete takes a bout a week to fully set and they have to do it floor by floor. They are now in reaching the top and final floors for the majority of the buildings.

One issue i have been experiencing over the course of this project has been capturing photos of the work being carried out internally. It turns out that there has actually been a lot of progress taking place inside of the buildings. The works have been installing the dry walls to create the separate rooms to create bedrooms and living spaces inside of the units.

Another development I was able to spot was the installation of windows and doors to the lower floors of a selection of the buildings. The project manager indicated that they will be looking to get the electricians and plumbers to begin workings on the rooms within the units as soon as a floor with complete with the dry wall and windows. We were also fortunate enough to be shown some of the detail drawings which we went through. The units have been designed with 150 mm of insulation in some sections of the buildings which might be to account for the cheaper materials that have been selected.

It was also interesting to see the full layout for the site and where the offices are on site. they have been using metal containers for the use of temporary offices for the management team and any meetings that take place with inspectors, surveyors, etc. We met the site managers and the production manager while in the offices however they were about to enter a meeting so we did not get the chance to speak with them much.

I hope you all found this as interesting as I did. I thought it was a really good opportunity to put context to the drawings and then see them in practise as well as get a much better idea of how the site functions efficiently and see the building units from inside. So now for the final time, thankyou for reading!

-Luke

Hello Readers,

Today I visited the hillside construction site for the final time. I was excited to return to Brighton in hope I would have some major progress to share with you however I was slightly underwhelmed. As you know on my previous visit they had completed two storeys of the external brick work for the buildings I am able to observe from  my limited view point. As you will be able to see from the photographs below they have only progressed onto working on the fourth storey. I would like to have been able to share more information on this however sources for this are very limited. One factor may be the high number of bank holidays through the Easter break as well as workers taking holidays. However it does seem that there was a lot more taking place when I visited today. There was a higher quantity of materials such as sand and cement bags situated around the working areas.

Another thing I discussed in my previous post was regarding the environmental factors and the protest group situated on the boarder of the site which has now been taken down and disbanded. There are still signs however the base is now removed. I can only assume the members have accepted defeat now that the site is so far into construction.

I hope that you have found all this information over the last few weeks useful and have enjoyed following the progression of the site. I feel I have found the experience very beneficial and I have found it very interesting to see the building practises we learn about in university being carried out physically. The hillside site is always very well laid out and well structured so observing progression has been relatively easy. The environmental scrutiny that the site has received is unfortunate however I feel PMC have made their best efforts to minimise this disturbance caused by the construction work. I would like to thank those of you out there who have followed me on this journey and visited my blog frequently. I plan to visit the site when the construction has been completed to see the finished product. The address of the site is in the previous posts if any of you would like to do the same. So for the final time………

Thanks

-Luke