Civil Engineering Surveyor18 Constructionarium

Adventures in construction wonderland

Abigail Tomkins with Robin Holdsworth, Scheme Director, and Julia Stevens, Development Manager, Constructionarium

A visit to Norfolk’s Constructionarium

THE board in the site office has ‘Sunday — Crane taking down Don Valley/Gherkin’ scrawled on it in blue marker pen. When you step out onto site, the familiarisation

gets ridiculous. The Ravenspurn oil platform is straight ahead; a half-dismantled Millau Viaduct lies on the far right just past the Kingsgate footbridge and Don Valley Stadium; 30 St Mary Axe (aka the Gherkin) is in four pieces in the far corner, next to a fenced off nuclear bunker; the Barcelona Tower stands aside Sheffield’s Millennium Gallery. As wonders of the construction world go, everything is familiar, only tiny. Either I had fallen down a rabbit hole and taken a sip from a bottle with ‘DRINK ME’ stamped on it; or I had arrived at Constructionarium.

Constructionarium is 15 acres of wonderland at National Construction College East in Norfolk. It is a live construction site, where students spend a week putting their classroom skills to practice — building miniature versions of key structures in the relative safety of a controlled area. Mistakes are there to be made and strengths discovered.

How it worksStudents arrive on a Sunday, receive health and safety, and site behavioural briefings, before getting their project packs. The packs include the all the information needed to build a civil engineering structure. Teams are created, roles designated, costs and schedules drawn up.

From Monday until Friday the teams are out on site. Some are given power tools training, some are responsible for budgeting and costs monitoring and one will act as project manager. The lecturers and course tutors stay with the students watching and helping out if necessary. The scheme partners with industry, and

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construction firms will send down staff to join a team, but the established professionals take a back seat as far as leadership is concerned. The students are very much in charge. They make the decisions, they make the mistakes. And mistakes are made — the Gherkin was once constructed upside down, and many an oil platform has sunk.

Friday is hopefully the day of celebration. Following structural assessments, the oil rig is released from its dry dock and floated into the miniature lake; the bridges walked across; the Gherkin entered; the stand of the Don Valley Stadium sat on. The same sense of achievement that greeted the workers who created the full size civil engineering feats, is felt by the students who have battled the same problems of costs, timings, unexpected events, weather, personalities and the wrong kinds of concrete — albeit in miniature.

On Saturday and Sunday, the site is handed back to the sole order of Constructionarium staff, who drain the lake, dismantle the oil rig, pull down the bridge, unassemble the Gherkin like a giant Meccano set, and prepare the way for Monday’s new students.

Why it worksConstructionarium offers students a chance to try out their chosen careers, before they’re actually in them. They are free to make mistakes in the knowledge that it will not cost a project thousands or them their job. The people who teach them every week are there to reassure; to question; to help make the connections between theory and practice. The construction professionals working alongside them are there to talk about their careers and their ongoing experiences on site.

On my visit there was a student who was in the final few months of his masters degree in structural engineering. This was his first time on a construction site. In September he will start a job where he will be expected to know the way a site operates. Luckily he seemed to be thriving — he was pink with the excitement of it all (or maybe that was windburn). Being on site can be glorious. And it can be harsh. Constructionarium is braced by everything thrown at it from the Wash. When the UK is cold, Constructionarium is freezing. When the sun is blazing, there is no shade. Not everyone reacts positively. Some of the students looked miserable; some looked perplexed and some looked bored — the majority though were immersed and loving it. Being on site is a wholly incomparable experience, you can’t teach the noise, the movement, the personalities. If a student ends their week in Norfolk realising that working on a construction site is not for them, Constructionarium sees this as a result. They’ve found out

Leading up to Friday’s big reveal. On site at Constructionarium showing the various stages of completion of the Gherkin; Ravenspurn oil platform; Kingsgate footbridge; Don Valley Stadium; and Barcelona Tower.

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visit both said the trip was oversubscribed within hours of being announced.

How to make it work betterThe site is open all year round, but in practice students only visit from March through to June. Daylight is an issue, as are the machinations of the academic year. Outside of this, the site is available for corporate induction programmes; refresher training for academic leaders worried that their own lack of site experience will show up in front of students; return to work programmes; rehabilitation programmes — pretty much anything that anyone wants it for. There aren’t many sites offering those facilities and that experience.

There is a smaller two-acre Constructionarium in West Lothian in Scotland. The possibility of expanding into Ireland or Northern Ireland is currently being looked into. Constructionarium Australia is already underway in Brisbane, where a miniature Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House are two of the projects being considered. If they work over there, there’s a good chance they will be flat-packed and find their way to Norfolk.

When Alice falls down the rabbit hole and arrives in Wonderland, she is confronted by chaos, stupidity, confusion, bureaucracy and the ridiculous. Not unlike some construction sites. She is also faced with wonder, beauty and achieving the seemingly impossible. Not unlike some construction sites. Constructionarium isn’t there to gloss over the wonderland that the industry is. It simply presents it as it is, to those who will be its future custodians. And the more prepared they are, the better.

Abigail Tomkins was hosted at Constructionarium by Robin Holdsworth, Scheme Director and Julia Stevens, Development Manager admin@constructionarium.co.uk jstevens@constructionarium.co.uk www.constructionarium.co.uk @JuliaStevensUK

in good time, while they’re still a student, and can assess their options and look at other fields to move into. Far better to learn this now, than in your first month of employment. Likewise, the companies who send supporting staff to work alongside the students use it as a recruitment tool. The natural leaders and those who thrive on the challenges of being on site stand out, and are often offered placements and, in some cases, future employment.

The university staff learn things about their students. The one they thought would be a natural project manager actually turns out to be better at site planning and setting out; or the introverted dormouse shines when leading a particular task. There are sparks of interest and confidence that only practical work can ignite.

When it doesn’t work...or when it works like every other construction project, i.e. not exactly as expected. The concrete didn’t arrive on time. This was supposed to take two hours and it’s been three days. Nothing is working in line with the Gantt chart. The rebars are at the wrong level. The concrete isn’t setting. The concrete is in the wrong place. It didn’t look like that on the drawings. The costings are all out. And the more worrying issue of making it back to the canteen with only five minutes to spare in the evening.

Who makes it workConstructionarium has been operating for 11 years and is currently under the stewardship of scheme director Robin Holdsworth and development manager Julia Stevens. It has garnered the support of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Institution of Structural Engineers and the Joint Board of Moderators. The Royal Academy of Engineering was involved in the design of the nuclear bunker task to help build the depleted skills of the UK nuclear engineering industry. It led to a visit by senior fellow HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh — whose Sandringham royal estate neighbours the site. More recently it featured in the Construction Industry Council’s pre-election manifesto as an example of best practice.

The industry partners who join students include Atkins, Careys, Morgan Sindall, Laing O’Rourke, Kier, Morrisroe, Interserve, Balfour Beatty and Sir Robert McAlpine. The universities who keep coming back year after year include Cambridge, Westminster, East London, Nottingham, Salford, Brunel, Birmingham, Newcastle, Leeds, Strathclyde and Heriot Watt. A number of American universities are also sending across students for the experience.

As a non-profit organisation, the funds Constructionarium generates go towards improving the site. Plans for 2015 include building a new reservoir to support the Ravenspurn, and maybe a canal to play with. The costs for students to attend vary from university to university. Some include it as part of the tuition fees, others charge students a supplement to cover the accommodation costs at National Construction College East. The course leaders from Brunel and the University of East London there during my

Depending on a successful launch, students can sail out to the Ravenspurn oil platform to celebrate.