Challenge

For a major hard landscaping project in Portrush, Northern Ireland, architect David Watkiss of the Paul Hogarth Company Ltd gave responsibility to the contractor to follow up on the delivery of approximately 800 different hard landscape items in the belief that cost would come down. However, the backloading of these items on the project meant that the opposite was in danger of happening.

Coleraine Borough Council delayed their purchase decision, which had a knock-on effect delaying products arriving from China during their harsh winter. The language barrier with China was also an issue that contributed to delays.

A central feature of the project was a set of granite radius steps. The architect specified the inclusion of tactile shallow slots at the top and front of the steps so that partially-sighted people would be able to navigate them easily. This was going to be very difficult to achieve by hand.

The sheer volume of stone and the radius feature, added to the complexity creating a real cause for concern for the deliverability of the project on schedule.

Solution

Pomery Natural Stone developed a new sandblasting technique to produce the required slot. After discussions with the architect, a rubber stencil was designed to be used either side of area to be ‘grooved’.

This was a more expensive technique, but as the contractor wouldn’t budge, Pomery engineered a way to do this at a reduced cost.

Outcome

The project was completed within budget and architecturally, was more than delivered.

Both David Watkiss and Coleraine Borough Council were very impressed with the results.