Client: Norwich City Council
Completed: Spring 2019
Contract value: £14,768,606
Services: Quantity surveying
Hamson Barron Smith provided quantity surveying for Goldsmith Street, Norwich, one of the largest Passivhaus developments in the country. This new-build social housing scheme consists of 93 Passivhaus units in the form of terraced housing and flats.
Hamson Barron Smith worked closely with the design team and were heavily involved in the design process, including a number of value engineering exercises pre and post-tender and a robust approach to risk management.
Goldsmith Street received the RIBA Stirling Prize 2019.
Due to the nature of the projects’ evolution, starting with the outline design being sought via a design competition, it became vital to the Client that they were able to proceed with the aspiringly award-winning design, while still being able to deliver value for money.
It was therefore a challenge to ensure that the Client had value for money while at the same time working with a design team keen to put their stamp on a prestigious scheme. This meant a heavy involvement by the project QS team in the design process to not only review forecast budgets and work with the team to monitor costs, but also to lead a number of value engineering exercises pre and post-tender to ensure that the project was deliverable and affordable. As well as challenging design, we took a robust approach to risk management as a method of delivering the award-winning result.
“It is high-quality architecture at its purest, most environmentally friendly and socially conscious form.
Behind restrained creamy façades are impeccably detailed, highly sustainable homes – an incredible achievement for a development of this scale. This is proper social housing, over ten years in the making, delivered by an ambitious and thoughtful council. These desirable, spacious, low-energy properties should be the norm for all council housing.”
RIBA Judging Panel 2019