The Great Pagoda

The restoration of the Great Pagoda is one of Historic Royal Palaces’ (HRP) most high-profile projects to date. The Grade I listed Pagoda is a central attraction at the UNESCO World Heritage Site at Kew Gardens. This project is unique due to the blend of historic conservation with new building methods such as 3D printing. There are many parties involved, from the numerous stakeholders, designers, consultants, artisans and down to the specialist trade contractors. All of which have been carefully co-ordinated and managed by Blue Sky Building (BSB), through pre-construction and into the construction phase.

Blue Sky Building was appointed in the summer of 2016 and along with HRP produced a robust package strategy. We managed a competitive tender process to appoint the most suitable contractors to each package whilst providing best value for our client. We managed to achieve an overall saving of 25% against the budget cost plan.

The age of the building meant there was little historical data about its original construction, therefore the key risk to the project was discovery. The mitigation for this has been managed by BSB through a series of trial investigations.

The nature of conservation is to maintain as much of the existing fabric as possible whilst bringing the building up to 21st century structural standards; this has been a process which has been closely coordinated by BSB and HRP throughout the project.