Construction Design & Management Regulations

Construction Design & Management (CDM) Principal Designer: S2 act as the Principal Designer (Planning Supervisor & CDM Coordinator) for many clients of different scopes and sizes. Mark Swain, S2 Founder & Board Chair, contributed to the research and development of the original Construction Design & Management Regulations along with later updates.

The Principal Designer is responsible for ensuring good investigation and communication of design risks on a construction project. This could be a refurbishment of a tower block, construction of a new housing estate or the renovation of a historic museum. Below we highlight one such project.

The Royal Courts of Justice is one of London’s historic buildings, which it is still used daily as a collection of court rooms. There are many challenges in maintaining this building located in a busy part of central London while important cases are being tried. Huge historic chimneys (approximately 46 metres), that tower above the busy street, were crumbling and needed replacing by specialist stone masons. Protected kestrel nests had to be considered and large scaffolds were erected above courtyards with a busy footfall of judges and barristers. Moreover, high profile prisoners needed to be brought in and out in vans and security was paramount. Dozens of specialist contractors had to demonstrate that they had considered all risks and controls. The Principal Designer then needed to ensure that all these contractors were coordinated during each stage of the project and that the works were coordinated with the demands of the court sessions. The project was completed over three months without any failings.

Some project highlights:

• Understanding gained from specialist restoration trades

• Understanding gained by working with security specialists

• Knowledge gained of highly specialised design scaffolds

• Close working project team was retained on three future annual projects

S2 has been involved in many CDM construction projects, mainly as Principal Designer, but also as Client CDM Advisor and as advisor to the principal contractors. Some of our past projects include: The O2 Stadium in London; Office of National Statistics in Newport; Port Solent Housing in Southampton and The Metrocentre in Gateshead. We are currently advising on the construction of a large modernist houseboat, which will be featured on the TV programme ‘Grand Designs’.