Business as usual
Construction is inevitably intrusive to some extent. But disruption has to be minimised when working so close to the general public and nearby businesses. Throughout this project, the pavements around the store as well as the footbridge across from a multi-story car park had to be accessible at all times.
BAM’s solution involved several coordinated approaches. Every week, a meeting with 30 or so stakeholders explored whether any works and site activities in the coming fortnight needed to be adapted. For instance, over the Christmas period there were changes to fit in with longer store opening hours.
Before the project began on site, the team carried out initial ‘sample’ works to demonstrate all the working methods that would be used for demolition, removing the tiles, erecting scaffolding and reinstalling the façade.
An acoustician monitored and recorded noise levels, both internally and externally, with both the client and the store manager attending these demonstrations. As a result, BAM adapted some activities to deliver the project with minimum disruption.
For example, the impact wrenches usually used to install scaffolding turned out to be too noisy inside the store, so the team reverted to traditional scaffold spanners instead.
During the live project, 18 noise and vibration monitors installed inside Selfridges automatically alerted the BAM project managers, so they could react quickly to address any problems before they actually disturbed employees or customers.
