Blog Post: Visiting Site as a Part 1 - Rory McCormack

Over my year out I have been working on a large scale residential project in London. As a Part 1 my role within the team is to aid with subcontractor coordination, design optimisation and the production of construction information.

Over the three months prior to visiting site, I was particularly involved in Precast stair coordination & Prefab Utility Pod coordination. I was excited to get the opportunity to see these elements progress from architectural drawings to onsite installation. It also allows you to appreciate the true scale of a building. Working in Revit makes it very easy to forget the magnitude of the project you’re working on.

Visiting site provided the opportunity to lead my first in person design workshop. This involved the coordination of the kitchen subcontractor designs with our original design intent, M&E services and building control requirements. With the technology present in the site offices, we were able to remote into the office back in Belfast from London and present the material for coordination live. This was extremely efficient as opposed to trying to print out countless drawings and allowed the Revit models to be used for coordination in real time.

After traveling to site, we got the opportunity to tour the neighbourhood and gather an understanding of how the local community operated. Our site is based in the Islington borough of London with underground stations less than 10 minutes away making it central to almost anything.

We then had our monthly client progress meeting. This is a chance for a representative from all teams on the project to discuss issues and progress over the last month as well as a chance for the client to table any questions to the contractor team. Finally, we completed a site walk to review the ongoing construction onsite and answer any buildability queries for the contractor.

My advice to other students preparing to visit site would be to try familiarising yourself with what you will encounter. It can be a daunting experience not knowing what to expect so spending five minutes looking at details you will come across makes what’s happening onsite much easier to understand. Similarly if you know what stage construction has progressed to it won’t surprise you to see part of the façade not finished. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. People onsite are more than happy to answer any questions. Don’t forget as a Part 1 you are a representative of the architectural team and play a key role in the success of the construction of the project.