Printing House Square, Trinity College Dublin

As part of Trinity College Dublin’s (TCD) ambitious plans to provide student accommodation on campus and ancillary support and leisure services, the existing TCD-owned Printing House Square office building, fronting onto Pearse Street, is to be demolished and a new building developed in its place. This new building will include 278 student residences located over the first to sixth floors, sports facilities, plant rooms, storage, and changing facilities at basement level - 2, a health centre, offices, storage, IT rooms, and plant space at basement level - 1, and estates and facilities, porters office, disability services, and retail at ground floor Level. The Linesight team have extensive experience in the education sector, and so, were appointed by the client to oversee these works.

Overseeing the full works

Linesight is providing full project management and cost management services on this project and is fully responsible for all aspects of program delivery. Responsibilities extend to brief development, layout review and sign-off with various stakeholders, detailed reporting to TCD at critical points to facilitate stage gate sign-off and approval to proceed to the next stage, detailed risk management at all project stages, value engineering, life cycle costing, and strategic advice in relation to program enabling works contracts and costs.

Steering the procurement and tendering

• We guided TCD through the public procurement process from providing procurement advice and recommending an appropriate strategy, to participating in the evaluation of returned tenders for the architect and employer’s representative, civil/structural engineer, building services (M&E) engineer and PSDP (Project Supervisor Design Process)
• We provided a thorough analysis of procurement strategies to de-risk the project as much as possible, and as a result, recommended the appointment of an architect-led single point design team to be managed by our team, along with a design & build procurement process, in accordance with EU guidelines.

Demolition complexities on a live site

• It was imperative that the existing campus data and telephone exchange centers were protected during the nearby demolition and construction works – a detailed vibration and dust analysis was undertaken and allowable limits were determined and agreed with IT services in the university.