The Otto

The Otto is a £60-million residential development constructed by the London Borough of Hackney with Londonewcastle as the residential advisor.

Overlooking Hackney Downs park, it has terracotta cladding and provides 89 high-quality apartments in two buildings, which are 11 and 14 storeys respectively and are joined with a large fourth floor external terrace.

The authority has developed the project using BIM level 2. The residential scheme was developed to pay for the adjoining state-of-the-art primary school which has a BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ rating.

Our role

Currie & Brown provided cost management and principal designer services from feasibility. The activities carried out included:

• Feasibility cost estimates and cost planning
• Building efficiency cost advice
• Feasibility studies to maximise value
• Sustainability cost options
• Lifecycle costing
• OJEU-compliant, two-stage contractor procurement
• Benchmarking
• Value-for-money reporting
• Risk and change management
• Post-contract cost reporting
• Value engineering

We worked closely with the client to design the building efficiently while retaining the high quality design. Working as a team, we were able to reduce the size of the basement and omit the requirement for a car lift. Space that could not be used as apartments was also repurposed to create ‘wellness rooms’, adding to the sales values. At post-contract stage, we worked closely with the client and contractor to incorporate a schedule of opportunities for value engineering and a gain split mechanism, which was beneficial for both parties.

As part of the unilateral undertakings of the development, 30 apprentices were required to work on the scheme. Over the course of the project three apprentices on Currie & Brown’s apprentice programme were involved in the scheme, contributing to this requirement.