- Client: British Land
- Sector: Commercial
- Region: London
- Completion Date: 2025
Here at Sir Robert McAlpine, we recognise the full potential that digital tools are offering
in construction, and, as a result of that, the 1 Broadgate project is a fully digitally driven
project. The 1 Broadgate project is a large mixed-use development with some challenging
sustainability targets for us to deliver. It's a big commercial mixed-use office building in
the heart of Liverpool Street in London. Half a million square foot of mixed retail and office
development. It's over 18 floors, which is two basement floors, two groundfloor floors,
the rest is office space with plant rooms on top. As you can see, this project is based in
the heart of London. It's a very complex project. The programme is quite tight so
we have to make sure everything's actually running smoothly and on time. The 1 Broadgate
has a number of challenges especially relating to sustainability. One of the main ones being through
flow of information from design specification, through procurement into as-built information
on site. We need this information to help us evidence the sustainability we're delivering
on the project and make sure we've got all of the requirements met. So, some of the key challenges
on a project like this is the tight programme, trying to get everybody to coordinate areas and
the high level congested services. Anyone can build a building, it's fairly straightforward
but it's delivering it within the time frame which is the difficult part. And for that, we need to be
able to work as efficiently as possible and the use of technology enables us to work efficiently,
disseminate the information quickly, and to know where we are in real time as close as
possible. The use of innovative technology is really, really important in sustainability.
As an emerging sector within the construction industry, it's really important to stay on top
of these new innovations to help us save time and collating and providing the evidence that we need
for assessors to make sure we're doing the job we're supposed to be doing. Time is always very
important when it comes to obviously delivering a major project like this. Traditionally, obviously,
when you didn't have these digital tools, of course you would run into problems, that the
project is overtime, which means cost. However, using Augmented Reality such as, obviously, the
service that XYZ Reality are offering, it enables us to see if there are any potential clashes,
if there are any issues there and then, so that means obviously cutting time delays on
site and making sure that whoever is responsible to resolve an issue is notified on time. It will
help us reduce our programme times and coordinate projects better and work more collaboratively.
