Government & Civic
Courts, civic offices and public buildings — formal procurement, formal architecture.
Civic work is building for the public purse: longer design lives, more layers of approval, and a client who answers to auditors. The construction itself is conventional — the same frames, envelopes and services as any large building, linked below as shared methods — but it arrives wrapped in governance that shapes everything from material selection to the handover documentation, and frequently with a security requirement threaded through the design.
Two flavours recur. New civic buildings — courts, council offices, embassies — where security measures are designed in from the structure outwards. And work at the heritage interface, where half the job is building new work against, inside or on top of a listed structure that must not be harmed. The three guides in this sector cover civic building construction, government security measures, and the heritage interface.
What does Government & Civic cover?
Process guides in Government & Civic
- Civic & Government Building Construction — Council offices, courts and civic halls — public buildings built for a sixty-year life under public procurement, where durability, accessibility and maintainability outrank speed and gloss.
- Security Measures in Government Buildings — The protective shell around public buildings — PAS 68-rated bollards, blast glazing, secure lobbies and stand-off — engineered so the security deters the threat without imprisoning the public.
- Working on Listed & Heritage Civic Buildings — Construction on listed civic buildings — consent first, like-for-like materials, and the historic fabric protected, recorded and respected at every stage of the works.
Shared methods used in Government & Civic
- Site Access & Enabling Works
- Setting Out & Survey Control
- Piling & Deep Foundations
- Basement & Substructure
- Concrete Frame Construction
- Steel Frame Construction
- Roofing
- Façade & Cladding
- Windows, Doors & Glazing
- MEP First Fix
- MEP Second Fix & Commissioning
- Testing, Handover & Snagging
Part of the Buildings group.