Managing the Paralympics

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In 2007, the opening of the Eurostar terminus at St Pancras International proved new life could be breathed into clapped-out railway stations, and the Renaissance St Pancras is intended to do the same for the railway hotel. Originally these were glitzy, high-class destinations built by railway companies as they vied for supremacy, but most have declined into cheap bed-and-breakfasts or, like the Midland Grand, closed down altogether. When the Blues went 17-0 after 11 minutes against Ronan O’Gara’s defending champions it appeared to be a gamble that had worked.

There are lots of great things going on, but I’m not sure there is a great communication strategy behind it that says ‘this is how we get the whole industry involved in this’. The new plan also meant the design team had to design the lower parts of the building much earlier than planned. T1 - Managing Paralympic Bodies: The Technology of Classification and Its Impact on (Dis)abled Athletes This transformation has been carried out by contractor Galliford Try and an army of specialist subcontractors. “Because of the size of the project and complexity of the schemes, we have had three or four specialists working on the heritage schemes and several conventional decorators as well,” explains Simon Frawley, Galliford Try’s project director. This project has been a game of two halves for him. Conversion of the top four floors into apartments was completed in May 2009. Since January 2009, Frawley has been concentrating on the hotel, where the changes have been much more restricted.

Small areas of paint had been removed but further investigation revealed hand-painted birds (right) forming part of the pattern. The original decoration had been varnished, which made it easier to remove subsequent layers of paint. Despite this the paint has to be scraped off using a scapel, which is a time-consuming job. Solvents are used to remove the varnish. Since its closure, the building has been threatened with demolition twice, turned into drab offices, then closed down and left to rot in the late eighties after the owner, British Rail, could not renew its fire certificate. We’ve got these cultures that have grown up in construction over many years. It’s just light years away from manufacturing companies.

Farrell with have a better idea following a couple of days training regarding the readiness of each individual for what promises to be a titanic tussle against the in-form Scots.They eventually ran out 54-5 victors but Munster won’t be near as wasteful if they get the hosts on the ropes. Also, new cast-iron details were made for the balustrades and windows, coloured glass was installed in the fanlights over the doors where they were broken. Stonework was repaired or replaced and new lifts were inserted for both apartments and hotels. All the lift shafts are now in place. “Our approach has been to try and get all the heavy work done so when we start on the hotel properly, it’s more of a fit-out job,” says Frawley. At the moment, the windows are being repaired in the hotel areas. This requires internal scaffolding, which needs to be out of the way before the rest of the work starts in this area. So who was brave enough to take on these challenges? The Manhattan Loft Corporation (MLC) stepped up, unable to resist the chance of turning those gloriously gothic, steep roof spaces into modern flats. “We introduced the concept of loft living to the UK, and there’s probably no better attic in the UK,” says Harry Handelsman, the firm’s founder. “I saw it as a chance to create a distinctive identity for a building everyone was in awe of.”

Here, Building exclusively reveals the first images of the completed apartments, and the story of how this London landmark has been revived. It’s better to take the pain now,” says Frawley. “Decorative repair work is a very slow process so it added a lot of time to how long the scaffolding was in the staircase.”It’s early days in the championship and we are nowhere near must-win territory, but Rowntree will want to see more of the same grit and fight that resulted in a 10-3 win over the Stormers (above) last week. Leinster were 12-point favourites before the teams were named yesterday and that handicap has been pushed out to 15 after the match-day squads were known. Obsolete as a hotel, and with no plumbing worthy of the name, high ceilings, walls galore and chimneys running everywhere, it was pretty useless when it came to be used as an office building too. It’s [about] having the confidence in the outcome early enough to be able to implement it,” he said. Ken Bowman on Wimbledon expansion splits councils over planning permission: ‘The article on the development at Wimbledon is shoddy. The a... ‘