{"id":5433,"date":"2026-08-04T11:24:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T11:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecspecialistcontractors.com\/?page_id=5433"},"modified":"2026-08-04T13:46:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T13:46:30","slug":"portfolio-heriot-watt-university-robert-bryson-halls","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ecspecialistcontractors.com\/?page_id=5433","title":{"rendered":"Portfolio: Heriot Watt University | Robert Bryson Halls"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Client:<\/strong> Heriot Watt University<\/p>

Project Value: <\/b>\u00a3688k<\/p>

Project Timescale:<\/b> 19 weeks<\/p>

PQS:<\/strong> Pro Cast Consulting<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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PROJECT DESCRIPTION<\/b><\/u><\/p>

Refurbishment of 59 kitchens over four floors within the Robert Bryson Hall (student residencies) for HWU at Riccarton Campus, during term time whilst the accommodation block remaining live throughout the project.<\/p>

ECSC were tasked with renewing 59 kitchens within a single university student accommodation block.
Magnet Kitchens were chosen to supply the kitchen furniture and worktops, and Howdens were to provide the appliances (oven, hob and extractor hood)
These were shared kitchens, each providing storage, prep, cooking and cleaning facilities for 4 or 5 students.
The building was over 4 floors, with 10 kitchens on the ground floor (2 of which were accessible kitchens for disabled students) plus a wardens flat, 16 kitchens each on the 1st and 2nd floor and 16 kitchens plus a wardens flat on the 3rd floor.
Works carried out over four floors working, phased to deliver one floor at a time whilst the remaining floors remained fully occupied throughout the works.
All kitchens followed a similar process as shown below.<\/p>

KEY CHALLENGES<\/b><\/p>

There were a number of challenges as listed below.<\/p>

\u2022 Working in an occupied building. This had an impact on working hours, noise restrictions and general health and safety of both the operatives and students\/staff within the building.
\u2022 Isolations. Due to being an occupied building, we were required to give 48 hr notice whenever we wanted to work on electrics or plumbing in kitchens due to them also being tied in with bedrooms, often this was impractical to manage.
\u2022 Careful planning and co-ordination of trades to create a progressive and systematic sequence across the floors allowed efficiencies and trades continuity to ensure no down time or interrupted working.
\u2022 Access, egress, waste removal and material distribution of the new kitchen and appliances was carefully co-ordinated to happen during specific times of the day when student presence was minimal. With very limited access to the good lift, most material movement was carried out manually utilising the stair cores.
\u2022 In order to maintain their maintenance contract, the client specified appliances from a separate supplier to the kitchen manufacturer. This made the co-ordination between the two suppliers and delivery schedules critical to the success of the project delivery.<\/p>

ADDED VALUE<\/b><\/p>

In order to generate savings and enable the project to be delivered within the client\u2019s budget, careful planning and co-ordination with the accommodation manager enabled us to utilise some existing rooms and communal facilities within the building for our site accommodation and welfare, saving 20 weeks of prelim costs. This also minimised disruption to the students as it minimised the site compound requirements ensuring no loss of parking facilities or recreational area.<\/p>

Our extensive experience of working in live buildings was essential in the successful delivery of this project, with minimal disruption to the students in this 24\/7 live operation residential building.
This was the first time that HWU have refurbished occupied student accommodation during \u2018live\u2019 term time and the client was appreciative of the quality of workmanship and the manner in which the project was professionally delivered.<\/p>

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Client: Heriot Watt University Project Value: \u00a3688k Project Timescale: 19 weeks PQS: Pro Cast Consulting PROJECT DESCRIPTION Refurbishment of 59 kitchens over four floors within the Robert Bryson Hall (student…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5433","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecspecialistcontractors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecspecialistcontractors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecspecialistcontractors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecspecialistcontractors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecspecialistcontractors.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5433"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecspecialistcontractors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5457,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecspecialistcontractors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5433\/revisions\/5457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecspecialistcontractors.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}