Procured through the North West Construction Hub High Value Framework by two-stage tender, Glass Futures is the national centre of excellence for glass innovation aiming to reduce and ultimately eliminate CO2 from glass production.
Although built for Network Space and St Helens Council, we worked closely with the end user, Glass Futures, to incorporate their complex fit-out design needs, including a complete glass production facility capable of producing 30 tonnes a day; this features the world’s first openly accessible test and trial furnace enabling the study of carbon footprint reduction in the glass-making process.
Through BIM, we identified interfaces, dependencies and clashes early in the process and a final federated model was incorporated into Glass Futures’ Computer Aided Facility Management System to support the building operation.
Our CITB award-winning apprenticeship programme, B+K Futures was implemented on this project which maximised opportunities for local people:
- 735 apprenticeship hours were created for the duration of the project and beyond.
- 50% of people working on the project were from th Liverpool City area
- 100 volunteer hours were committed to ‘green’ initiatives
- We took two employees from a NEETS background and one through a rehabilitation programme.
- 50% of project spend was within a 20-mile radius of the site
- £4 million of social and economic value was delivered during the course of the project.
