Design and build

Press, 17 October 1978, Page 14

Design and build

The actual construction of the second stage of the Hornby Mall was undertaken by Industrial Holdings Ltd. This company built the mall under its "design and build” service, seeing the whole project through from the initial concepts and architectural drawings to the finishing off of the buildings themselves.

The managing director of

1.H.L., Mr R. H. N. Smith, believes that there are great advantages for clients in the design/build method. This is partly because substantial savings in building construction costs can be made at the stage of designthe buidings. When the architect responsible for the design of a building and the contractor who will be responsible for its actual construction are part of the same group, there are opportunities for interplay between the two to ensure that design takes economy of construction into account.

But Mr Smith stresses that this does not mean compromises on the part of

the architect, either in his standards of design or in his requirements for sound construction. What Mr Smith sees the teaming up of architect and contractor in the same organisation as achieving is an awareness of ways to avoiding extravagant methods of construciton.

In the many construction jobs which I.H.L. has done, new methods have been introduced which have resulted in substantial savings over conventional methods which are followed when architect and building contractor work in more separate worlds than they do within Industtrial Holdings.