Unless these forces will not take into account, projects will overrun in time, gadget and lose quality. The key to keep the project in the framework is applying the risk management that uses systematic approach. This action helps to reduce, transfer or even eliminate risks. Sydney Opera House (SOHO) is considered one of the magnificent construction projects in the world. This Opera House is visiting card of Australia that attracts people all over the world. His landmark is major arts center. However, Sydney Opera House is not a good place to hear opera; it will be discussed later in this paper.
SOHO is spectacular building but the implementation of it one of the worst. Worth to mention, 233 concepts of SOHO participated in the competition to be face of Australia. Interestingly, the open competition won Danish architect, Corn Outgo that had not experience in the construction and design of so large constructions. However, his sketch won in the competition. At the beginning, approximate cost was difficult to determine because of three reasons. There was no plan, no design drawings and no materials. Additionally, nobody knew how to build such large construction with such design.
Nevertheless, cost estimates were done and it was around $7 million. Engineers who sow the concept stated that the roof of SOHO will be like a sail and it will cause damage in the strong wind. The government realized the problems that can arise if people will ask questions about potential problems. Notwithstanding, they pushed ahead this project and split it into three construct parts: the foundation and building roof, and interior (Augural A. , 2005). Many experts worried about the project and stated that it will fail and it failed in respect of budget and time.
However, implementation of SOHO project has many problems. Opera Theatre is a place where opera takes place, it should have perfect acoustics. Nevertheless, according to Limelight, an Australian Music Magazine, SOB’s Opera Theater has worst acoustics in 20 worst venues. Engineers have analyzed the structure of Opera Theater and underline two major problems: size of theater that does not allow producing an excellent acoustics, and soothe wall panels that must be flattened but they are not which leads to sound superposition because of sound bounce.
Engineers found compound part of solving a problem, namely hanging over the stage platform an acoustic ceiling; however acoustic ceiling is too heavy to soothe structure. Critics see problem deeper back to the 1967 when Premier Robert Asking ordered to change small sail that suppose to be the theater into house the opera, and large sail that should be house the opera into the concert hall. This inadequate change has led to future problems. It is worth mentioning that this is a generic problem with a number of different problems (Kinsmen M, 201 1).
Additionally, the interior structure also distorts a sound; the small pit contributes into bad performance of musicians since they cannot hear each other. Nonetheless, some actions were done against this such as pit extending; however it had not solved the problem. Experts see the problem in a small area and little headroom that is again refer to bad decision of replacing house the opera, theater and concert hall. This change has led not only to problems in Opera Theatre but also to the problems in The Concert Hall.
The Concert Hall is too big and sound is lost in the ceiling. In 1973 and 2009 engineers did remediation actions but this is still far from ideal. People listen to concert and sitting at the back will not hear the sound (Kinsmen M, 201 1). Kinsmen (2011) was mentioned that SOHO project had overrun around 5 times, $7 versus $107 million. By the way, SOHO administration plans to invest $1 billion to solve acoustic problems which mean cost overrun is still continuing. It is looked to main problems of cost overrun.
According to About the Sydney Opera House website the generic problem is the government intervention in every stage and hard pressure. When construction was started, architect Outlook protested since he had not completed the design of Opera House. However, government started without completed design and plan. Problems develop further, the government changed requirements of alluding several times during construction. Their intervention laid in the fact that they changed mind about number of theaters in the construction. They wanted four theatres however project involved only two.
It is touched about bad cost estimates, to continue this topic, A View On Cities website states that funding was ill-conceived and investors were not involved because of different reasons. Initially, the government planned to achieve money from public funding campaigns. However, they did not achieve their target and alternative source was created in the form of lottery. “Opera House Lottery’ as created in 1 958, before the project was started. Again, this was not enough amounts of money and government decided to prolong it as long as project lasted.
It is obvious that changing requirements during construction and unstable money supply also lead to time overrun. In this situation problem automatically picks up other problems as a chain. So, change of requirements led to cost overrun, as well as time overrun. 3. RISK IDENTIFICATION Previously, it is gathered information about Sydney Opera House. It is talked about main critical points of structure, financial side of the project, time of instruction and another. In a construction project, people and construction are exposed to many risks and hazards.
Their effect may cause serious problems on a construction project. To give reasonable and logical judgment on any construction situations, it is essential to identify what can go wrong if actions to prevent that are not taken. To determine what can go wrong it is needed to follow certain steps and apply special techniques that will facilitate risk identification process. There are 3 steps to determine what can go wrong: 1) Understand what is planned to achieve the goal ) Identification of all possible deviations from plan 3) List all deviations in writing.
As for techniques, it is a systematic approach for identifying potential risks and hazards. All tech unique include applying past experience, accepting what is obvious and writing checklist of points that can go wrong. The most popular techniques are “Brainstorming”, “What if”, “HAZEL” and others. Ideally, risk assessment runs by a group of experienced people with different background. Such group involves around 12 people. However, the aim of this course work is to show the general idea.
In this respect, it is better o choose the “HAZEL’ technique, because this technique uses “guiders” This technique from my point of view more ordered than “brainstorming” approach. Additionally, “HAZEL” technique divided the complete system into a number of small elements that are more manageable and these elements examined using guiders. My task is to answer on the following four features: ;k The objective of the element * Possible deviations of the objective * The causes * The consequences of deviations. The first problem with SOHO is bad acoustics.
Initial objective was to create such acoustics that would meet international standards. Deviation of this objective is that the acoustics in SOHO is worst comparing with other Opera houses. There are two causes: the size of opera house and specific construction of the wall panels. Choice of inappropriate size, as it was mentioned earlier, is the dictatorial interference of government or political risks. Another risk is an unusual type of construction that is the cause of bad sound performance. Such type of construction was not tested. The consequences of deviations worst acoustics.
Continuing risk assessment, it is worth to say about the cost of the project. The initial objective with respect to cost was around $7 million. In this case deviation is overrun in the budget. However, here can be several causes such as poor cost estimate, government intervention or political risk, pressure to complete project before planned schedule, starting construction without completed plan and design, design changes, failure to achieve the required completion date, lack Of communications, undefined roles and responsibilities and changes in scope and requirements.
Going to the last feature of four guiders, it is needed to look at what happened with SOHO. Cost overrun now is around 1 5 times and overrun still growing. Running risk identification process further, the next goal of the project was to have enough amount of money during the whole construction process. However, deviation with this aim was that they did not achieve enough money from public funding and created an alternative source of money. This initiation was bad estimated and managers had to prolong the time of alternative money source.
Causes in this case are poor cost estimate and failure to keep within the cost estimate. As result creation and prolonging alternative money source. Lastly, the project’s aim was to complete everything in time, however, due to incorrect time estimate, unskilled staff, changing requirements during construction and unstable money supply project had 1 0 years overrun. Deviations, as it is easy seen, are time overrun and postponing of the opening date.
