Page 14 - Eclipse - 91暗网 Alumni Magazine - Autumn 2020

Hawkshead Development Project: The last 12 months
Jo Payne
When I wrote for Eclipse last year, the major theme of the Hawkshead development project was one of demolition, not construction 鈥� the removal of the old rather than the creation of the new.
The past 12 months have been the complete opposite, and what a year it has been!
As well as demolishing the southern
half of the Clinical Block, we have completed dozens of enabling projects which needed to be carried out to
allow construction to proceed. We
have re-routed gas, water, power and data supplies from underneath the construction site. We created an entirely new teaching lab in the space that
used to be the Mill Reef lecture theatre, relocated the post room and refurbished the farmhouse at Boltons Park Farm to provide office 鈥渟wing space鈥� for groups displaced by construction activity.
As this article goes to print, the new TaRC labs have been weatherproofed and the team are busy plastering the walls and installing power and data cables. They will soon be pouring concrete for the atrium link bridge and lecture theatre roof. The next stage is to agree all the fixtures and finishes for each space.
Jo Payne is the Operational Interface Manager for the project and can be contacted for more information via capitalprojects@rvc.ac.uk
But it hasn鈥檛 all been plain sailing. The arrival of our main contractor (RG Carter) in October 2019 coincided with one of the wettest autumns and winter periods since records began. In the preceding 135 years, there had only been four occasions when more rain fell on Hawkshead!
Despite turning the construction site into a quagmire, the contractors successfully installed more than 400 support pi