INTERVIEW
Pictures: ©TATEHINDLE (EXTERNAL SIGNAGE STILL TO BE CONFIRMED)
Building for the future Senior Project Manager Andrew Justice updates Salvationist about plans for the new Territorial Headquarters
WHY IS A NEW THQ NEEDED? The existing building at 101 Newington Causeway is no longer fit for purpose. The building was not new when it was purchased, and the Army has certainly had good value for money out of it, but there are now a whole host of problems with it. The building doesn’t have a future in its present form. WHY WAS DENMARK HILL CHOSEN AS THE NEW LOCATION? There is a serious financial advantage in using spare capacity at William Booth College. We own the land, so we don’t have to find a significant amount of money to buy another site. I also think there is a desire for more integration, with an opportunity for a Salvation Army campus at William Booth College that could be greater than the sum of its parts. WHAT STAGE WAS THE PROJECT AT WHEN THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC HIT? Planning permission had been gained in 8
Salvationist 19 June 2021
full for the new building, a contractor had been tendered and selected, and pre-construction activity was significantly under way. Contractors could have continued to work through the pandemic, but the decision was made to pause the project. I think it was the correct decision for the Army not to be seen to be spending money on a new headquarters building when the country faced so much uncertainty.
research into all the options. We had previously made good decisions about where to move to and the building’s design, and we already had planning approval and were ready to start building. Any other option would have put us back by up to two years and required writing off significant money already spent on designing and preparing the new site. All these factors made moving ahead with the Denmark Hill site the best option.
WHAT WAS DECIDED AT THAT POINT? My role was to come up with options for when the project restarted, which included continuing the existing plans, stopping the project altogether, finding an alternative site or redesigning the building. With these options before them the directors of The Salvation Army Trustee Company decided to move forward with the building as designed externally, but to review the way it will be used internally. That decision was taken with a lot of deliberation after nine months of
HOW WILL THE NEW THQ CHANGE INTERNALLY? We actually started to redesign the interior before the pandemic and moved a long way from the original brief, which was to replicate what we had at the current THQ. A lot of stakeholder input had taken place, and there were discussions with HR and senior leadership, resulting in a decision to explore new ways of working in the space available. So, there will be more flexibility in the way spaces are designed and can be used. We will be moving from a static office environment and there will
