For the last six months Susan has been working with Mott MacDonald in Winchester on trunk road maintenance schemes.
We have been appointed by Mydeck UK Ltd. to act as structural engineers assisting with design of their range of temporary cantilever access platforms.  We have also carried out scaffold inspections on sites in London for contractors Multiplex and Josef Gartner.  The Manchester Hilton hoist tower has now reached 20 storeys high and we recently carried out first site inspection of this structure.

November-December 2004:
UBS’s hoist tower on the 50-storey Manchester Hilton tower is about to start on site.  The detailed design is complete for the first 20 floors and we will be progressing this design to keep pace with construction.
We are developing a 3D AutoCAD model of one of UBS’s high speed rope hauled material hoists.  The model will be used to prepare images and video for use by UBS when demonstrating the potential of these machines to their clients.  (See also our 3D Modeling page.)
We are still working on a variety of high rise hoisting schemes for UBS on projects throughout the UK.
During the summer we completed the design of a 9m deep cofferdam for Osborne on their Milton and Kemsley Distributor Road project.  After several revisions to suit ground conditions and changing construction methods the cofferdam was successfully completed and it is now being backfilled as the pumping station is completed.
Also this summer we design a variety of temporary works to assist Laing O’Rourke with fabrication and erection of their innovative modular housing system.

May 2004:
David returned from his latest visit to Hong Kong just before Easter.  The first segment moulds have now been commissioned and are producing segments.
During February we carried out an assessment of the stability of a partially erected steel frame building for Costain on their Diamond Synchrotron Project at Harwell in Oxfordshire, and detailed the temporary stays necessary to allow cladding work to commence.
Also during February and March we have prepared the outline design for a 50 storey common platform hoist tower for UBS for use on the Manchester Hilton Project.
We have just received a commission to design a pumping station cofferdam for Osborne on their Milton & Kemsley Distributor Road project.

January 2004:
The segment mould design work with Benaim in Hong Kong went on longer than expected and required 4 visits by David to Hong Kong.  This work is now well advanced and we hope to be able to complete our side of it from the UK.  We are continuing with a long term commission for Geoffrey Osborne Ltd. to check and certify falsework, formwork, excavation support, and crane foundations on their Portsmouth Waste to Energy project.  We have also recently designed temporary supports for crane outriggers for Laing O’Rourke on their project at The Phillimores in Kensington.  We continue to provide full engineering support to Universal Builders Supply Ltd. and are currently designing a wide variety of access, hoisting, and lifting gear structures for them on projects throughout the UK.  Many thanks to UBS for their forbearance during David’s long absence in Hong Kong.

November 2003:
We have formally re-constituted the business as a partnership to recognise Susan’s growing contribution.

September-October 2003:
David now finds himself in Hong Kong again at short notice after being away for about 3 years.  We have accepted a commission from Benaim Group to assist with the design of formwork for use in the construction of pre-cast concrete segmental bridges on a number of highway projects.  We will continue to provide service to our UK clients by email, phone and fax.  We have already issued several drawings to UBS in the UK by electronic means.  Drawings are now commonly issued as Adobe Acrobat .pdf files so in some respects distance is no object.  David will be back in the UK from 10th to 18th of October before returning to Hong Kong for another visit of about 3 weeks.

September 2003:
We have recently completed design of a five storey high, 22m long hoist run-off tower for UBS at Skanska’s Wargrave hospital site near Coventry.

Summer 2003:
Our two cantilever platforms finished their work on the slip-formed cores of the new Barclays building at Canary Wharf and have now been decommissioned.  The heavy duty platforms fixed to the building floors continue in service on the same building.  One of them was strengthened to support a 21 tonne chiller unit and several other large items of machinery for installation in the fourth floor plant room.  All the heavy lifts were successfully completed and the platform has now been moved again to the upper floors of the building.

July 2003:
During July we carried out design of a reinforced concrete base and structural steel pedestal to support a TAG crane for Laing O’Rourke on their Westminster apartments site.  The crane has recently been installed and tested on the pedestal.

Not really news but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to put this one.  We acted as client, engineer, and contractor for this 4m span cable stay footbridge.  The bridge has been test loaded with at least 10 children.     (Don’t take this one too seriously)