Using a blend of practical site experience and technical design knowledge, our Technical Services team are leaders in engineering support.
Our multidisciplinary team successfully completes over 800 design briefs each year and consists of engineers and modellers with a wide range of experience in structures, geotechnics, highways, drainage, lifting and construction methodologies.
The team supports projects across VINCI Construction UK and our VINCI sister companies in the UK and is highly regarded within the industry – assisting in the production of industry standards and providing support to various bodies including the Institution of Civil Engineers, the British Standards Institute, and the Temporary Works Forum.
Partnering with clients in the early contractor involvement stages of a project, the team uses its engineering skills and extensive construction knowledge to develop innovative methods and solutions which meet project requirements whilst minimising cost.
Key to the Technical Services team’s success is the training function that it leads within the business, mentoring Apprentices and Graduate Engineers to develop their engineering skills, nurturing and inspiring our next generation of experts.
Our capabilities span building and civil engineering projects in most sectors including:
- Roads
- Rail
- Airports
- Energy
- Nuclear
- Railways
- Highways
- Tunnelling
- Institutional and commercial buildings
- Student accommodation
- Facilities management
Temporary works
They allow or enable the construction, protection, support or access to the permanent works and include structures, supports, back-propping, geotechnics, earthworks, accesses, falsework and formwork. The designs we develop range from simple propping solutions to complex structures costing millions of pounds. Competent design, installation, use and dismantling is essential in order to protect the asset being constructed, mitigate risks to our teams and ensure the success of our projects.
Permanent works
Successful deployment of permanent works design expertise is critical to the success of design and build projects. We deliver designs through our own in-house consultancy Design Services and Technical Services teams and our carefully selected consultancy partners.
Our in-house design management expertise, underpinned by our comprehensive and systematic Design Management Procedure, enables us to effectively integrate external design consultants into our project teams and to deliver permanent works design to budget and programme. We have close collaborative relationships with our engineering and architectural design consultants whose expertise covers all the sectors in which we operate.
Our in-house Design and Technical Services team has a range of design expertise that encompasses bridges, building structures, building envelope, drainage and geotechnics. We routinely deploy this expertise to peer-review critical elements of externally produced permanent works design. We are expanding our in-house permanent works design capability in order to facilitate even closer control and integration of the design process and efficient self-delivery.
Our services
Permanent works design validation
Technical management
CDM oversight for engineering processes
Temporary works design and audit
Tender and concept design proposals
Logistics analysis
Best practice for digital and design management
Digital validation and co-ordination
Technical training and upskilling
Value engineering and innovation
Constructability advice and support
Surveying and setting out
Optimising for success
The team was awarded ‘UK Project with a Geotechnical Value of up to £500k’ for the development of the temporary works design for the propped cantilever basement excavation at the Paterson Redevelopment Project. Working with the VINCI Construction UK project team, a leaner solution was developed which saved over £150,000 in hire costs, provided a 60% reduction in materials, and took weeks off the programme. This was achieved by using the permanent works as part of the solution and collaborating with suppliers Arup, Bachy Soletanche and Mabey Hire to finalise the detailed design.
Value engineering
The most challenging element of Taylor Woodrow’s upgrade of White Hart Lane Station was the installation of two underpasses through an existing Victorian brick viaduct supporting the existing platforms and track. The Technical Services team worked with consultant Tony Gee and Partners to offer an alternative tunnelling solution under the railway in place of a complex bridging structure which would have required extended disruption and risk within a railway environment. The process saw 118 underpins installed underneath existing brick piers to enable the surrounding ground to be lowered for the new station, 30 horizontal spiles installed to provide support during tunnelling operations, and two pre-cast boxes assembled on site then pulled under the railway during a 52 hour possession.
Peer reviews and permanent works design validation
In the centre of Barton Square in Manchester sits the impressive 250T steel and glass Main Dome constructed by VINCI Construction UK as part of the redevelopment of the Intu Trafford Centre. A temporary tower structure was needed to resist vertical and horizontal reactions from the steel segments and ensure stability as this complex dome was constructed. Technical Services provided engineering support by coordinating the temporary works and methodology with all parties. The team developed a phase by phase finite element model of the dome to understand the reactions imposed to the temporary tower and surrounding structure and ensure that the proposed solution was safe. This was followed by a peer review of the permanent works to validate the design for safe construction.