Ryton Gardens Laboratory Refurbishment

Coventry University seeks to engage with a supplier to deliver a project to refurbish their current CAWR Laboratory suite at Ryton within the CAWR building (Centre for Agriculture Water Resilience). This is a specific supply and installation project requiring a degree of bespoke design, particular specification, and project-service integration to existing infrastructure. Due to the technical detail and nature of the project, as well as the frequent cycles of technology re-fresh in this field, the Estates Development team undertook a pre-market engagement for the past few months seeking professional advice and guidance to establish an understanding of the existing building and requirements of the project for the complete delivery of a highly innovative CAWR Laboratory being contained with the infrastructure of the existing building envelope. This high-level engagement made clear that one supplier: Overbury PLC, had a comprehensive understanding of the parameters of the project requirement, and have provided credible proposals in areas which needed to be developed further, having recently completed a refurbishment in an adjacent wing, utilising knowledge from lessons learned. The proposed works will also be compounded by the fact of the recently refurbished areas currently held with 12 months defect liability period, with materials and plants currently under warranty requiring alterations and extensions to services to cater for the new provisions. The project team has continued to undertake very significant pre-engagement activities with Overbury, including end-user workshops and focus groups, in order to develop the planned delivery of the technical solutions, defined within a number of constraints. This pre-engagement has required direct dialogue between Overbury PLC, the Faculty as end-users, and the project consultant team, in order to resolve questions about the interaction between the building's physical infrastructure and the installation of the Laboratory - e.g., the requirements for fume extract through the structure of the building, gas locations, and manifold pipe routes, together with drainage routes to holding pits, etc. The resulting proposed design solutions have been worked-up with Overbury PLC, which sits within the infrastructure and close proximity of the building space and its physical/ M&E and parameters installed as part of the recently completed adjacent works. The collaboration that we have established with Overbury PLC has brought a high degree of added value to the project, both in terms of the efficiency of the design proposal, which has been achieved because of their capability in design and supply of such systems; but also, the establishment of lines of communication and collaboration between them as the supplier, our estates project management team and the end user. The project is due to commence in September with a critical completion date in December to meet semester dates, with the potential for advanced material orders to meet the completion date, As a result of the above Overbury PLC are able to meet the needs of this project brief within the timeframe and provide the end-to-end solution and added value to this critical project.