Award Magazine - Volume 2 Number 7

$14.95

Volume 2 Number 7

Inside This Edition: Retrogreening Australia's Existing Office Stock The Future of Interior Fitouts Awardworthy Showcases

contents Cover image: Dalyellup College Image courtesy of Peter Bennetts

Volume 2 Number 7 Publisher | Brandon Vigon 03 8844 5822 publisher@awardmagazine.com.au Editor | Mark Kenfield editor@awardmagazine.com.au Contributing Writers | Sarah Bachmann, Robyn Baird Jennifer Cunich, Matilde Ejlertsen, Mark Kenfield, Romilly Madew, Caroline Ostrowski Professional Corners | Jim Doyle, Andrew Holder, John Merritt, Paul McLeod, George Xinos

Feature SUPPLEMENTs

06 Retrogreening Australia's Office Buildings

10 Australian Made:

Something To Boast About

26 Interior Fittings & Environmentally Sustainable Development:

The Current Reality

How Did They Do That?

08

Greensburg: More Than Just A Name

Marketing | Matilde Ejlertsen Senior Designer | Annette Carlucci Designers | Ian Clarke Production Coordinator | Rachel Selbie Circulation | subscriptions@awardmagazine.com.au

PROFESSIONAL CORNERS

24

Legal Corner Uncertainty In Uncertain Times

25

Technology Corner Crystal Clear: BIM Modelling Software In Action

36 Accessibility Corner

Access To Premises: More Than A Decade In The Making

Award Magazine is published by:

MediaEdge Communication Australia PO Box 21081 Little Lonsdale Street Melbourne Vic 8011 T: 03 8844 5822 F: 03 9824 1188 www.mediaedge.ca President | Kevin Brown Subscription Rates: (includes gst) Aud: 1 year, $49.95; 2 years, $89.95

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44 Worksafe Corner

Hidden Construction Injuries Undermine Individuals And Projects

Association Matters

53

Editorial suggestion/submission: Do you have a story idea, or would like to submit editorial for publishing consideration, please email: editor@awardmagazine.com.au Š Copyright 2009 Australia Post Publications Mail Pub. No. PP381712102392

4 www.awardmagazine.com.au

Green Building Council Of Australia A Green Dawn For Sustainable Communities

53 Association of Consulting Engineers Australia ACEA Supports Building A Low-Carbon Economy With Energy Efficient Buildings

54 National Precast Concrete Association Australia The Key To Thermal Efficiency

Single Copy Sales: (includes gst) AUD: $14.95 New Zealand: $19.95 Reprints: For information on article reprints or reproductions, please contact the publisher at: publisher@awardmagazine.com.au

Sustainability Corner Retro-Fitting: The New Trend

54 Property Council Of Australia A Melbourne Metro: Vital Infrastructure For A Growing City

Straight Talk

34

Interview With Robin Mellon: Green Star Executive Director

Awardworthy Showcases

12

Education Evolution: Dalyellup College

18

The Front Line In Data Security: The Polaris Data Centre

28

28 Underlined:

The Epping To Chatswood Rail Link

38 Rising From The Ruins:

Sydney Harbour YHA

38 Feature PRODUCT SHOWCASEs

45

Tactile Ground Surface Indicators DTAC

46

Mechanical Connection System Danley Systems

47

Cobiax Void Formers Danley Systems

50 Underfloor Heating Systems Comfort Heat

48 Window Film Film Pacific

51

Protective Coatings PPG Protective & Marine Coatings

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52

LED Technology Innovative Light Systems

Textural Glass: The Impress Range Cydonia The Glass Studio

editorial advisors and supporters

Award | 5

Feature supplement

Retrogreening Australia's Office Buildings

Okay, so some large-scale infrastructure projects are lending our construction outlook a hand; but what about commercial construction? Well, the outlook is still pretty grim on that front I’m afraid. Consumer confidence has started to rise a little, but we still have a long way to go before real, privately-funded confidence is going to return to Australian construction. So with that in mind, we’re left with the joyful prospect of figuring out some way to get the industry back on track. Well the good news is someone’s already thought up a pretty decent answer, so sit back and relax for a minute, and tell me how this sounds…

Now we all know that government infrastructure spending is a tried and true method for dragging a tattered economy with a putridly burst bubble through to the other side of an economic downturn (that’s the part where the flow chart starts climbing upwards again). It creates jobs, injects money into the economy, keeps skilled workers employed and when we do finally come out on the other side leaves us with ravishing new roads, or terrific new train tracks. Well international development consultants Davis Langdon have given all of this some fairly serious thought and come up with the idea that, instead of digging some holes or building new roads we could retrofit the country’s old building stock (most of which is over ten years old and due for it anyway) with green technology – updating the buildings, creating jobs, and giving our economic growth figures a less emaciated look.

So Davis Langdon compiled a report showing that by injecting money into upgrading the energy efficiency and sustainability of Australia’s existing building stock, we could generate over 100,000 ‘green’ jobs over the next decade and bring the nation’s current building stock back from the brink of energy-sucking excess and into the light of a greener, cleaner world.

So what’s the catch?

Well the report does suggest that the retrofitting would require the injection of about $26 billion into Australia’s existing office buildings over the next decade, which is BIG money. Davis Langdon’s Managing Director Mark Beattie has acknowledged that the concept of initiating a massive office retrogreening program in Australia is a daunting one but insists that it is unquestionably achievable. Though the report does suggest that significant government incentives; such as accelerated depreciation entitlements for building owners; would be required to provide the trigger for getting such a large-scale retrogreening program off the ground.

The report itself suggests that although the task is not small, it is very scalable. And states that buildings across the country can be found in a relatively short period and employment and jobs in those areas could be stimulated quickly.

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Initial modelling from the report suggests that retrogreening work on office buildings could be staged three floors at a time, which would allow offices to retain most of their existing tenants whilst helping to reduce disruption. And that in this way, the building owner would receive a renewal of their investment. The retrogreened building will have greater appeal to tenants, attract higher rents, enjoy fewer vacancies, reduced operating costs, and a longer serviceable life. All of which combines to create a building of considerably higher value than the same building with nothing done to it. There are also significant benefits for the local community with money injected into it through employment generating activity and significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Newer building stock poses a problem to this model as upgrading it is generally not financially feasible, but 81% of Australia’s existing commercial office stock is over ten years of age, and would benefit from refurbishment. This represents more than 17,500,000m2 of office space and almost 90% of it is A grade or B grade stock desperately in need of upgrade. Bringing these buildings up to modern environmental standards could, over the next ten years, create over 100,000 “green” jobs in the process.

“This creates jobs growth without creating additional office stock,” says Beattie, and it should help future proof existing buildings “to perform closer to new standards and new tenant expectations,” Now obviously where things start to get complicated is in convincing building owners to invest further in their buildings on the prospect of it possibly attracting higher rent and lower costs for them. The report’s suggestions for encouraging this sort of investment involve, “Linking retrogreening incentives to a mandatory disclosure regime” in order to “provide market incentives where occupiers are able to compare performance levels and where owners get recognition for the effort they have made.” So essentially it suggests that the measured efficiency performance of each building be mandatorily disclosed in order to allow tenants a full understanding of where their tenancy sits, from an efficiency standpoint, compared to others. And to allow building owners to receive recognition for how successful their push to greener operation has been (which would help to encourage retrogreening, and discourage inefficiency).

Getting the scheme underway will certainly be no easy task, but in an environment that, at the moment, is averse to new building, is largely stagnant, is slumping further by the day economically, and is notoriously energy inefficient by global standards. It seems the right course of action for the present.

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How Did They Do That?

Greensburg: More Than Just a Name

How did a small, rural town in the middle of North America become a global benchmark for comprehensive green building? The answer, it would seem, lies in the determination of the local community and the ongoing support of local government and businesses. Today, Greensburg not only serves as an exceptional illustration on a wide range of green building methods; it has also become a well-known brand for the industry to turn to when looking for inspiration in leading green building technologies and innovations...

Greensburg. It’s a delightfully coincidental name given the history behind this story. Greensburg is a small, rural town in Kansas, in the United States, that is blossoming even stronger after being completely wiped out by a category EF5 tornado on 4 May 2007. The horrific twister tore a path 2.7km wide and 35km long, straight through the town. With wind speeds of up to 230km/h, it took just 20 minutes for the close-knit community of approximately 1,400 residents to be no more. 11 people were killed, and the entire town was levelled. The damage was catastrophic.

However, even in the face of total devastation the people of Greensburg

still had hope. They decided to look at the destruction as a clean canvas; their opportunities for rebuilding endless.

Despite the scale of the rebuilding process and the shock that continued to affect the local community, the small town came together and decided to aim high and rebuild the entire town exclusively with sustainable elements and technologies, the new Greensburg would live up to its name. As the city leaders put it; the most important goal for Greensburg was to build a sense of economic dynamism that would generate new jobs and businesses and thereby persuade Greensburg’s talented work force to stay.

At the forefront of the communal decision

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“It’s an investment for the future.”

Mayor Dixson Greensburg, Kansas

How Did They Do That?

The 5.4.7 Arts Center was the first in Greensburg to be recognised for its sustainable elements, which include wind turbines and photovoltaic solar panels

The total devestation wrought by the EF5 tornado that swept across Greensburg, killing 11 people and leveling the whole town

Photos courtesy of Studio 804

makings was Greensburg Mayor Box Dixson, who at a recent seminar hosted by the GBCA in Melbourne, described the philosophy as “all about the legacy for our future generations”.

In order to build back Greensburg bigger, better and stronger than ever before, the Greensburg City Council passed a resolution which required all publicly funded buildings to be rebuilt to U.S. Green Building Council’s Platinum LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - green building certification system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council and equivalent to Australia’s Green Star rating system). To facilitate this process, leading environmental consultants and associations around the globe participated in making the numerous projects in Greensburg a reality.

The town’s rebuilding is far from complete yet, but some significant sustainable projects are already a reality. To date, four buildings have been LEED Platinum certified, and another six are expecting to receive the same certification. All 303 of the town’s streetlights, have been erected with LED lamps, which use 40% less energy than traditional fixtures. Another part of the overall plan is to generate the entire town’s electricity from a local wind farm, which will consist

of 10 turbines capable of supplying electricity to 4,000 homes.

Inevitably, one of the major concerns of the residents in the initial stage of the rebuilding phase was the prospect of higher building costs. However, that thought seems to have been put to shame. One of the consulting organisations, The National Renewable Energy Lab has tested 100 of the recently built homes in Greensburg and found that on average, they consume 40% less energy than the houses that were standing prior to the tornado.

What really makes Greensburg such an admirable example of successful green rebuilding is the holistic approach that became a key philosophy for the entire process and remains so today. Holistic in the sense that building green isn’t merely thought of in terms of sustainable materials and technologies, but also in terms of involving and educating the entire community on sustainable living.

For example, twelve eco-homes were built as ‘knowledge-bases’ where residents can collect and share information about sustainable housing elements and their experiences with them.

The ‘green showcase’, as Greensburg is often referred to, would never have been a reality without the support and sponsorship from local businesses. One such business is ‘Greensburg Green Town’, a not-for-profit organisation created for the purpose of providing a database of knowledge, information and story-telling; all of which helps to encourage the community to stay at the forefront of sustainable living.

Sustainable Arts Centre Amongst the numerous innovative buildings in the re-birthed town, the 5.4.7 Arts Centre is one of particular significance, both in terms of its importance to the local community, and in terms of the building techniques used.

The 5.4.7. Arts Centre (its name derived from the date of the catastrophic tornado - 4th of May 2007) was the first completed public facility in Greensburg and it has served as an innovative example of how green technology can be embraced in the

homes of the Greensburg residents. The building is the result of a collaboration between the Arts Centre and the University of Kansas’ School of Architecture and Urban Planning. It is the first building in Kansas designed and built by students.

In addition to a clever passive design that utilises and harnesses natural fluctuations in temperature and air movements in the building by predicting how the sun will move through the seasons, the new Arts Centre also includes wind turbines and solar panels that are predicted to provide 80-120% of its energy needs (depending on the season and wind speed). There are three external wind turbines of 600 watts each, with 48 volt wind generators that produce approximately 143kW per month (at an average 17.5km/h wind speed). Moreover, the solar system, comprising 8 photovoltaic panels of 175 watts each, which are wired at 48 volts and generate 140kW per month (given an average of 5 hours of sunlight per day).

As with many of the projects in Greensburg, the new Arts Centre was built with recycled materials from the surrounding areas. The exterior building envelope is comprised of recycled materials from a former Army Ammunition plant that provided ammunition to the US forces in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

A Lesson for the Future Perhaps the most exciting thing Greensburghastoofferistheclearexample it sets for how our communities can come together to exist sustainably. Because it is the holistic approach to engaging and motivating the entire community to sustainable, environmentally sound re-building that has helped to ensure that the philosophies driving the town’s re-emergence will be maintained by future generations.

One might ask why a small town in the middle of Kansas – an area in which tornadoes are an everyday risk – would choose to rebuild their entire town ‘green’ from scratch, when the up-front cost is considerably higher?

“Well,” says Mayor Dixson, “it’s an investment for the future.”

Award | 9

Feature supplement

Australian Made: Something to Boast About It’s a very interesting time in Australian manufacturing.

There seems to be something of a groundswell happening in regards to supporting local products, and you don’t need to go any further than your local supermarket to see it. Australians are becoming increasingly aware of the distinction between local and foreign products and are (at least when it comes to the groceries) actively supporting local industries.

Demand for Australian building products is rising. And it seems that one of the biggest driving factors behind this demand is stricter specification requirements coming, primarily, from government entities. They are requiring preference be given to Australian products and it is both massively raising the profile of some Aussie products, and also teaching people how local products can make a viable alternative.

And there’s now an argument to say that specifically promoting your company and your products as Australian can be a great way to improve both your business and market awareness of your products. Because people like to support local businesses when they can.

So how can you take advantage of this?

Well, one option would be to follow the example of Digiglass; a Melbourne-based company that produce patented, decorative safety-glass products for building interiors and exteriors. Digiglass’ Director Anthony Anderson, had had the notion of promoting his product as ‘local’ on his mind, but it wasn’t until after reading an article inside the last edition of Award focusing on buying Australian, that everything fell into place for him. He signed his company up for the ‘Australian Made’ program and his business has been benefitting ever since.

So I sat down with Anthony to discuss the impact promoting his product as ‘local’ has had for his company.

“Since joining the Australian Made campaign and actively promoting ourselves as Australian, we’ve received a lot of communication about our product,” he explains, “it seems that a lot of entities (though primarily government ones) are now specifically giving preference to locally-made products, and promoting ourselves as ‘local’ has really seen the interest in our product boom. We’ve already received a number of lucrative new contracts from it.”

“So the Australian Made angle has immediately become a talking point for our business,” he continues, “and for the first time, people are really asking questions about our product, beforehand many had simply assumed they came from the United States.”

So between growing support for locally produced products and materials, and building and project owners actually specifying preference for Australian products it’s a great time for Aussie companies to embrace their Australianness.

“Perceptions of Australian Made products have changed,” Anderson believes, “there used to be various stigmas attached to Aussie products, that they couldn’t match those produced in Europe or America, but that’s changed completely now. We’re up there with the best in the world.

So I think local suppliers need to push their products as being ‘Australian Made’, it’s something to tout. You can compete with foreign products, you just have to get out there and do it.”

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Another benefit to having local support and local relationships is that it can help Aussie suppliers and manufacturers to build up their own confidence in their products or services, which can improve the quality and complexity of what they do, and the potential for what can be achieved with those products or services. For example, Digiglass has been establishing relationships with a number of local architectural firms and found that the collaborations have really pushed forward what’s possible to achieve with his company’s glass. For example, the intricate façade of the new 30 The Esplanade apartment development opposite Luna Park, which Digiglass developed with SJB Architects.

“This would never have been possible without the previous experience we had with each other,” Anderson says, “understanding what we were each capable of allowed us to really push the envelope”.

Conversely though, when local producers/suppliers/ manufacturers don’t get the support they need, it makes it harder for them to upgrade and update their products, which in-turn holds back what the local industry is capable of, and makes us less competitive on the whole – so it’s somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“That said, Australian companies shouldn’t expect to have this work handed to them on a platter,” Anderson adds. “That doesn’t help anyone in the long run. But you can differentiate yourself, you can say “We’re Australian” and make the case for why that’s a good thing.” He believes that the point should be to build up relationships with local architects and builders so that companies make themselves an essential part of any kind of building that requires the style of products they produce.

“Lead times are tighter, and supply chains are neater when you source locally,” Anderson concludes, “so we all need to ask ourselves how branding ourselves as ‘local’ can benefit us, and how it can benefit those attached to us – so that our local industry is as sustainable and as selfsufficient as possible.”

Photo courtesy of Tony Miller

The complex glass façade of 30 The Esplanade, made possible by the outstanding relationship between the architects and the manufacturers

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AWARDWORTHY: DALYELLUP COLLEGE

Education Evolution: Dalyellup College

Main entry to the college; colour and scale play an important role in announcing the front door to the school 12 | Award | www.awardmagazine.com.au/featuredprojects

The classrooms of the future aren’t the simple four-sided rooms with a blackboard at one end that you and I grew up with. They are flexible, task-based, multi-purpose, multi-media rooms, with computer-powered interactive whiteboards, that can be specifically configured for teaching various aspects of the curriculum. And although they now fall under the standard of the Education Revolution; blowing proudly, as it does, over the churning construction fields of the Stimulus Package; these future classrooms were working their way into schools across the country even before the revolution...

One such school is Dalyellup College; a new $25 million secondary school located just outside the southwestern West Australian coastal city of Bunbury; that wraps these flexible, task-orientated classrooms of the future in architecture that won the Australian Institute of Architects (WA) 2009 award for public architecture.

So how do you create this sort of flexibility and task-orientation in both your classrooms and your school as a whole?

Well to understand how the project team approached that, we first have to understand something of the project itself. Set in a beautiful, tree-lined site; the brief for Dalyellup required a modern, contiguous building form that, “wove between the existing trees, emphasised linkages between the internal and external spaces, blurred the boundaries between traditionally segregated areas of the curriculum, such as science, drama and humanities, and included incidental spaces such as verandahs to encourage flexible learning opportunities.” according to David Gulland, Hassell’s principle architect on the project.

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Inward Flexibility Now this flexibility had to make its way not only into the linkages between the interiors and exteriors of the building, but into the interior design and fitout of the college as well. “We wanted a planning solution that allowed for flexibility throughout the entire site; so instead of having separate areas entirely for teaching the different aspects of the curriculum, you have areas that can be

Photos courtesy of Peter Bennetts Photographer

integrated with one another depending on what the staff want to achieve.” as David Gulland puts it.

The concepts of clean, smart and wellventilated learning environments were key to the educational objectives of the new school, so building flexibility into the classrooms to create new learning opportunities was key to their design. To achieve this, “we put all of the classrooms adjacent to each other and on the same levels,” explains Eleni Gogos, one of Hassell’s design architects on Dalyellup, “which allowed us to have part-solid, partmobile sliding wall partitions between each classroom, permitting all of them to be modified to purpose.” The process for this was to use Capral track systems and glass and frames from Leschenault Glass & Aluminium to allow for transparency between the classrooms, whilst still providing acoustic barriers between them when needed.

“Each of these learning environments,” Gogos continues, “can be either directional, with the whole room orientated towards the teacher, or they can be arranged in a more open, group-orientated layout, where the focus is broader.” Which helps by giving more control to the teachers and students to rearrange the classrooms as they need them.

This philosophy was particularly prevalent in the Senior Learning Environment. “There was always a philosophy that the layout of the Senior Learning Environment should tie into the fact that the senior students will soon be moving out into the Award | 13

Awardworthy: Dalyellup College The southwest street elevation of the school; coloured glass panels announce the main approach to the school entry point, providing a modern interpretation of the colour themes used throughout the school

real world,” Gogos explains, “where working in open-plan environments, both by yourself and in teams, is the norm – so we designed things to be much more open and much more mature; to help prepare students for the sorts of environments they’ll encounter at university and out in the workforce.” These areas are also kept separate enough from the staff areas to allow senior students a sense of independence.

All of which is tied in with cross ventilation and a building orientation that provides high levels of natural sunlight, to aid productivity. The General Learning Community has South-facing clerestory windows incorporated into them to admit diffused daylight throughout the year.

North-facing clerestory windows were not considered due to the potential glare issues that sun penetration into the teaching spaces could cause.

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Outward Flexibility “Our biggest challenge on Dalyellup was how to make best use of the site,” explains Gulland, “we had to meet very specific educational objectives, and in the end we came to the conclusion that one of the best ways to do this was to harness and reference the beauty of the site itself.”

“One of the first things we did,” he continues, “was to engage our Principal, Andy Sharp; who is a registered landscape architect; and he believed that we had to find ways to save the trees, so we mapped all of the trees on the site, their types, sizes and canopies, and we did specific modelling to see how we could retain them.” This fed into the design process and allowed the school to be quite specifically tailored to the site.

To provide a distinction between the younger and older year levels, the main teaching buildings were divided into two standalone buildings that contain four separate learning areas; a General Learning Community for the younger year levels and a more sophisticated Senior Learning Community for the older students.

The Senior Learning Community forms part of a two-storey building mass that protects the south-west corner of the school from the strong prevailing winds that sweep in off the coast. As well as providing a clear, defined street address and focus for the main entrance. The General Learning Community sits adjacent to the eastern end of the Senior Community; and a third building – incorporating a library, café, and the health and physical education facilities – including a unique covered recreation area – forms the northern boundary of a generous heart-shaped courtyard between the buildings.

“The covered recreation area,” Chris Samson, structural engineer on the project, explains, “required special detailing

Lorena Grant's “Essentials of Flight” art installation located adjacent to the main entry

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Awardworthy: Dalyellup College because the architects wanted very deep trusses spanning the length of space to provide a sense of ‘openness’. They wanted to have blade-like trusses without additional supports sticking off them, so to provide the necessary stability for the span of the roof; we connected the trusses to the rafters.”

Also complimenting the flow and architecture of the school were some detailed landscaping and a series of artworks by Perth artist Lorenna Grant, that include an entry sculpture, entry gates and a series of timber and metal lounging platforms collectively called ‘The Essentials of Flight’, The landscaping “was meant to integrate with the buildings, so the paving materials both internally and externally matched.”

Explains Chris Byrne, Urbis Director and Landscape Consultant on the project, “The paving pattern runs throughout the entire site,” he continues, “linking the external buildings into an overall theme.”

“Another key innovation,” Byrne adds, “was that, traditionally, outdoor seating in schools is made up of seats or benches with backs, and they tend to just be aligned in parallel; what we did instead, was create interesting shapes so that students can sit in triangular arrangements, and therefore facilitate conversation more easily.”

Lorenna Grant’s artworks; much like the school itself; “source their inspiration from the land on which the school has been built.” she explains, “Spending time at the site before the building works commenced allowed me to observe the natural systems within the area. I took the elements that I noticed collectively and layered them into an ‘essence’ of what I felt makes the southwest (of WA), and this area in particular, unique.”

Lorenna then shaped what she observed into a series of gathering points for the school community to move through.

Some of the broader design principles of the school; the flexibility of function in particular; also made their way into the artworks as well, with the timber and metal lounging platforms in the courtyard ideal for sitting, climbing, playing, meeting and conversing on.

The central courtyard; the ribbon-like building form creates a generous, north facing community “heart” courtyard, and the central tree (retained from the site) provides a “signature” identity for the school

The southern elevation of the entry to the arts areas; natural building materials

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dispersed with splashes of vibrant colour have been chosen to compliment Sustainability To help facilitate sustainable methods to achieving the new the natural surrounds and highlight function school’s objectives, Building Environmental Consultants Gabriels were brought in to help with the architectural and environmental acoustics of the school (i.e. traffic noise intrusion, noise emissions from the school, etc.), develop natural ventilation and daylight strategies for the classrooms, and to assist with building envelope thermal performance (i.e. solar control, insulation, thermal mass, etc). And their work also promoted considerable sustainable design in Dalyellup.

For example, although the project’s initial brief to mechanical consultants Steens Gray & Kelly called for reverse cycle airconditioning throughout the two learning communities. Through consultation with Gabriels it was decided that, due to the temperate climate of the region, by incorporating natural ventilation strategies such as cross-flow and stack ventilation systems, the school could, as David Gulland explains, “cope well enough with most of the temperatures in the region, that it eliminated the need for air-conditioning entirely; there are now just some gas heaters to take the edge off the cold in the cooler months.” As a result, Dalyellup’s overall running costs and energy The view towards the central courtyard and library from the upper level balcony consumption are extremely low. of the Senior Learning building Throughout all of the buildings, high levels of thermal insulation were incorporated into the building envelopes, particularly the roof/ceiling constructions, to help maintain constant temperatures and allow the natural ventilation systems to work as effectively as possible.

All of which leaves us with a handsome, logical, no nonsense, school environment that’s well lit, well ventilated, simply detailed and most importantly of all – flexible to the needs of its students.

And that’s the sort of school we want to be building.

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AWARDWORTHY: THE POLARIS DATA CENTRE

The Front Line In Data Security: The Polaris Data Centre

Photos courtesy of Springfield Land Corporation

If you got to start from scratch and build a new city in this, the Age of the Internet; a digital age where the ones and zeroes of binary code govern so much of our lives; how would you go about it? It seems a fanciful question, but it is one the folks at the Springfield Land Corporation; the group behind the development of Greater Springfield, the fastest growing master-planned city in Queensland; had to give considerable thought to…

Because along with all of the wonderful convenience and connectivity the ubiquity of the internet and digital communication has brought us, come serious considerations for the privacy, security and safety of our information. Fraud, theft and even the perfectly innocent technological tragedy of computer breakdown; can have serious and even dire consequences as work, personal effects, records, and confidential information are lost or maliciously acquired. People rely on digital technology these days; it has become a cornerstone of our lives, and with the growth of that reliance comes the need for greater reliability both in our access to, and the security of, our information, our data.

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All of which is currently fuelling an unprecedented demand for data security; as governments, financial institutions, and companies both large and small, seek out Fort Knox-like protection for their data and their clients’ data.

With this in mind, you can get some sense for why the Springfield Land Corporation thought that their Polaris Data Centre, developed in partnership with Suncorp-Metway and the Queensland Government, would be a good idea.

A $230 million dollar project in the heart of Greater Springfield’s CBD, Polaris is a purpose designed and built Tier III+ Data Centre incorporating approximately 14,000m2 of GFA over five levels, with approximately 7,000m2 of raised data

Left: During testing & commissioning 3,600 electric heaters were plugged in and turned on to test the cooling system's ability to cope with the intense heat loads. CRAC cooling units shown on the perimeter walls.

Right: One of the redundant switch rooms where the mains power is stepped down before being exported to level 5 via Busduct.

sustain the data floor equipment until the emergency diesel generators are able to start up and transition the load.” In addition, because these rotary systems harness kinetic energy, Polaris is able to do away with large numbers of lead acid batteries.

Polaris stores up to 200,000 litres of diesel onsite, which is enough to allow the six huge 22 tonne emergency generators to supply power to both the core and air conditioning systems for up to 48 hours after a mains outage.

Security of Access For data centres, another element of security that’s vitally important is the security of access to data. Governments, banks and big multinationals need perpetual access to the data on their servers, so Polaris offers 99.997% uptime – which translates into a maximum of just 8 minutes of downtime a year, and perhaps expresses a little more clearly why Polaris requires such extensive and stringent redundancy controls.

As with most electronic devices, the key to keeping servers accessible and running is to keep operational temperatures reasonable. Though actually achieving that in a building that could double as the world’s largest convection oven is no mean feat.

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Security of Power With three data floors, each with 1600kg/m2 of loading capacity and 800W/m2 to 1,500W/m2 of scalable and redundant power and cooling capacity, you’re talking about a building that, assuming full occupancy (Polaris is currently at 90%), produces enough heat to raise the temperature of 1,700 litres of water to 100 degrees every minute.

This is the sort of temperature load generated by current high-end blade servers, and Polaris had to be designed with future generations of blade server and data storage technologies in mind.

To that end, the cooling requirements of keeping these servers safe and secure are immense. At full capacity, if the air conditioning were to stop working, the data floors would overheat in just fifteen seconds. Regular emergency power systems are simply not up to such tight tolerances, so Polaris utilises a Piller rotary uninterruptable power supply (UPS) system to provide a no-break situation for cooling. “The UPS equipment supplying power to the data floors and cooling systems are manufactured by Piller and are unique and high specialised equipment.” explains Atkinson, “They provide inertial storage of energy (where a large rotating flywheel stores energy and then releases it when required) to

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floor, hosting the mission-critical IT systems of government departments and utilities as well as both local and international companies. The data floors are spread over three levels, sandwiched between two levels of plant room, and protected by five levels of security running from the front door to the data floors themselves.

Polaris also supports Greater Springfield’s key infrastructure services such as hospitals, banks, ATMs, supply chain management, e-mail and internet with minimum-to-no downtime. Which as Nathan Atkinson, contractor Theiss’ Services Design Manager on the project puts it, “Makes Polaris a key element in positioning the new city as an information and communication technology (ICT) hub for South-East Queensland.”

Which makes the new data centre’s security features, both from a physical and electronic standpoint, vitally important.

As project architect Ian Hamilton, from Deicke Richards, explains, “The project was a highly technical one that required a hermetically sealed 'box' to house data storage in a secure environment. The services component was onerous as the facility was rated as N+2, which meant that all services and equipment were either doubled or had to be provided with two extra redundant units.”

Award | 19

AWARDWORTHY: THE POLARIS DATA CENTRE Left: One of the large Trane chillers during installation and testing Right: The Diesel supply pumps which distribute fuel from the 200,000 litre bulk storage on level 1 to the day tanks adjacent to each generator on level 5

There was also a very interesting process of testing and commissioning, when it came to selecting the cooling system for Polaris, Schroor says, “We needed contractors to demonstrate that the systems could deal with all of the heat coming from the computers.

So in order to mirror the conditions the data floors would be faced with, we had to buy 3,600 electric heaters (1,200 per floor), plug them in and turn them all on, in order to test the cooling systems’ ability to handle the intense heat they’d be subjected to.”

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One of the key efficiency points for the centre is, as Schroor explains, “The aggregating of small data centres into one building,” which allows the overall energy usage of those data centres, on the whole, to be considerably more efficient, “it gives you one large-scale plant without additional waste,” he adds, “We built an incredibly sophisticated building automation system into Polaris. It has 48,000 individual circuits, and they all have to be monitored and their performance reported to tenants monthly. Every circuit in the building is measured, and turned off if it’s not working.” So the centre’s efficiency is maximised circuit-by-circuit.

Locked Up Tight With the data centre’s energy and cooling needs catered for, the final step for Polaris was to secure it from physical intrusion or attack.

So with: 24x7 manned security and facilities management, bullet-proof glass and walls, biometric man-traps on each data floor, a secure loading dock with a vehicle trap, and full security camera monitoring – tied into an NEC Smartcatch system, which monitors the security feeds throughout the building and uses behavioral analysis and facial recognition technology to flag suspicious or malicious behaviour – it’s perhaps not too hard to see why Polaris has been running without a single hiccup since opening, and why its current tenancy is made up of clients like Suncorp, Citec, NEC, EDS, Ipswich City Council and Pipe Networks.

In this digital age, data security matters; and – from the looks of things – data centres like Polaris offer the most comprehensive way to provide it.

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Efficiency in Excess With the massive energy and water requirements of the centre, and the costs that they present to tenants, efficiency measures played a large part in the design of Polaris.

In order to control the centre’s thermal environment, the data floors’ CRACs are supported by the use of a highefficiency, reticulated chilled water system that runs under the raised floor area, which in turns links into a system of six cooling towers to provide the data floors with adequate cooling and ventilation. The water demands of this system are considerable; over 1,000,000 litres of water is kept on standby and the system circulates enough cooling water to fill an Olympic swimming pool in just 90 minutes. In order to cope with this Polaris has a massive dual-water facility built into it, which reduces the amount of potable mains water needed by using recycled water whenever available within Springfield’s CBD. Polaris also harvests rainwater from its roof which, as Nathan Atkinson explains, “Is stored in an underground storage tank to supply irrigation for the building’s landscaping, and cleaning for its façade.”

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This meant the cooling system required to cope with the heat generated by the centre had to be massive. The base cooling on the raised floor is supplied by Stulz Computer Room Air Conditioners (CRAC), each delivering approximately 100kW of cooling capacity. There are also two backup units in case any should fail (an N+2 redundant configuration).

On average these CRACs can support 1.6MW of heat load; however, extreme high-density racks and hotaisle contained PODs are supported by additional APC InRow cooling units configured in either N+1, N+2 or 2N redundancy arrangements. The InRow cooling units sit amongst the server racks in order to provide more direct cooling to the middle sections of the rows (which the regular CRACs, located at the end of the rows, can struggle to do in rows with high-density racks). The InRows provide a nominal capacity of 17kW, with the ability to handle higher peak loads if required. Depending on the InRow configuration and containment model, racks of up to 60kW can be supported on the data floors.

As Chris Schroor, Springfield’s Executive Director for Commercial Development explains, “Humidity and low density cooling on the data floors is controlled by the CRACs, while the InRows handle the higher density heat loads. The InRow units treat the high heat loads at the source rather than moving the hot air across the floor with the hope it reaches the CRACs.” “The underlying principle,” Schroor adds, “was to keep the design flexible and scalable, able to efficiently maintain low average floor densities, with the ability to efficiently treat high heat loads at the source.”

POLARI SDATACENTRE:PROJECTDI RECTORY Dei ckeRi char dsi samedi um si zedar chi t ect ur e,ur bandesi gnandl andscapear chi t ect ur epr act i cewi t hast r ong r eput at i onf ori nt el l i gent ,af f or dabl edesi gn.Thepr act i cewasest abl i shedi nBr i sbanei n1994andnowhast wo pr emi ses,onei nBr i sbaneandoneont heSunshi neCoast .

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Dei ckeRi char dsunder t akespr oj ect sr angi ngi nscal ef r om i nt er i or st onewt ownsandr egi onalpl ans.Ourwor k hasr ecei vedconst antaf f i r mat i onevi dencedbyawar dsf r om ourf oundi ngyeart opr esent .

St r at egi cDi r ect i onsi st heI CTMast erPl annerf ort heCi t yofSpr i ngf i el d,andt heI CTdesi gn aut hor i t yoft hePol ar i sDat aCent r e.

Thecompanypr ovi desvendori ndependentI CTadvi cet oseni orexecut i vesi nFeder al ,St at e andLocalGover nmentAgenci esaswel lasCommer ci alor gani sat i ons.

St r at egi cDi r ect i onsi sr egar dedasal eadi ngaut hor i t yi nt hi scount r yi nt hedesi gnandpl anni ng ofdat acent r es.St r at egi cDi r ect i onsal somai nt ai nsPr act i cesr el at i ngt oTel ecommuni cat i ons andNet wor ki ng,I CTSt r at egy,andPr oj ectSer vi ces.

LEGAL COrner

UNCERTAINTY IN UNCERTAIN TIMES Joint ventures are an important and flexible tool for project delivery, and for large-scale projects in particular.

However care must be taken to ensure that the expectations of the group are not frustrated by the absence of an enforceable joint venture agreement. Because joint ventures have to deal with uncertainty in many forms; be it economic, technical, regulatory, or legal, it seems they are always waiting to rear their ugly heads and test these partnerships.

So as economic forces plunge and soar, those who pilot these projects need to show the wisdom of Solomon and the dexterity of Houdini if they wish to weather the storms these forces create.

Technical uncertainties don’t usually affect most runof-the-mill property developments, but on bigger, joint venture developments they should always be investigated carefully as the costs and repercussions of getting things wrong are exponentially so much higher.

Regulatory uncertainties also pose a constant risk to joint ventures, as regulatory holdups cause time delays, increased costs and confusion, and can foster discontent amongst joint venture partners.

Legal uncertainty is often an issue in joint ventures as, although they may be formed with optimism and the best of intentions, they are often tested legally when economic factors change and all parties are forced to reconsider the risks and rewards of their involvement alongside the other parties’ performance.

The Supreme Court of NSW recently carried out a postmortem on a joint venture for a property development that collapsed after the market moved against it in August 2007. The joint venture had commenced more than three years earlier, in March 2004, but even with the benefit of a favourable development approval granted in December 2005, it still floundered.

The Court resolved the rights and responsibilities of the parties in September 2009 after proceedings were issued in February 2008. Accordingly, between an optimistic commencement in March 2004 and an acrimonious resolution in September 2009 both parties committed substantial costs to a venture which, in the end, rewarded neither of them.

Firstly, The Court reviewed the documents that constituted the joint venture agreement and decided, unsurprisingly, to accept only the signed heads of agreement made in March 2004 as the contract between the parties.

It excluded covering letters and other correspondences because no clear agreement had been made to include these documents. The Court rejected the argument that they were adopted by the ongoing performance of the parties.

Then secondly, The Court was required to deal with the defendant’s arguments. The defendant, having been sued for damages of over a million dollars, not unsurprisingly contended that the joint venture was too uncertain to be enforceable.

The Court considered a number of important factors to determine whether the joint venture should be declared void for uncertainty; 24 www.awardmagazine.com.au/featurededitorial

The factors which favour this uncertainty are: 1. language which is obscure and incapable of any definite and precise meaning 2. documents that fail to evince any definite meaning on which the court can safely act 3. mechanics of the deal that are not spelled out on aspects needing care and precision 4. essential elements of the bargain that are missing or unclear 5. failure to provide a mechanism for the resolution of disputes The Court has a willingness to find that a contract exists where it was appropriate and not to apply a pedantic approach to interpretation. Finding a contract void for uncertainty is a draconian solution and the court will be careful to adopt a position which will preserve the validity of a contract wherever possible.

After considering the details relating to the division of profit, along with the terms of the security to be offered for the financing of the construction; The Court found the contract inadequate, and declared it void for uncertainty.

The lesson to be learnt here is that not only should original joint venture agreements be clear and comprehensive; but that the opportunity to update and enhance a joint venture agreement should be taken both early and often; to ensure that if the brick does hit the fan, the whole deal does not unravel completely.

For more information about this article, please visit www.awardmagazine.com.au/featurededitorial

Jim Doyle Doyles Construction Lawyers

TECHNOLOGY COrner

Crystal Clear: BIM Modelling Software in Action US$11,000,000,000.00, it’s a big figure.

And what will it buy you? Well, about 73 acres of Las Vegas Strip, complete with a 61-storey, 4,000-room gaming resort; three luxury non-gaming hotels; two large multi-residential towers; approximately 2,400 condominiums; and ‘Crystals’, a massive retail and entertainment district.

A joint venture between MGM Mirage and Dubai World, the development is called CityCenter and is the most expensive, privately-funded development in the history of the western hemisphere.

It raises an interesting question of how you facilitate and manage the design and construction of such a mammoth project. The complexities of projects with far fewer zeroes attached to their stats and price tags can offer appalling headaches from logistical and organisational perspectives, so how do you handle a project that’s, proportionally, so much larger?

Well it would seem a large part of the answer is Building Information Modelling (BIM); an object-oriented style of 3D architectural design. BIM software enables the data for your various building components to be imported directly into your project’s design files, presenting 3D models of those components in-place within the design. It also allows you to attach detailed imagery and information to designs – which then become immediately accessible and available to everyone involved in the building process. Logistically this can offer projects massive savings in time, and as a result costs, as it updates and informs the entire building team on the latest design changes.

On CityCenter, BIM was particularly essential to the highlycomplex roof structure of the Crystals mall. Featuring no less than 16 interlocking roofs (9 planner and 7 curved), its construction required extensive collaboration between architect, engineer and detailer, as the geometry of the roofs could not by defined by traditional 2D documentation. The modelling and detailing for the roof structure was undertaken in Australia by BDS Vircon using Tekla Structures.

The BIM software was then used for: advanced material quantities, sequence break-ups, fabrication scheduling, the locations for truss splices, erection planning (including temporary prop-ups). All of which allowed the project to be planned based on the actual steelwork to be constructed, which in turn allowed the builders to be far more confident when it came to visualising how each component would fit, than they would be with just nominal schematic information for reference.

The architects provided 3D reference files for the roof skin, and these were used to ensure that not only the primary steelwork, but also the connection plates and bolts, would not penetrate the roof skin; preventing any on site clashes and the need for costly rectification. These files were also used to set-out the necessary curved bent-plate roof edge plates on the perimeter steelwork of the roof. Three engineers also moved to Brisbane to work more closely with the BDS Vircon modellers to solve design and connection issues directly in the model.

The complex, interlocking planner and curved roofs meant that the connection design could not be done by traditional methods. So the BIM software model became a collaboration

tool for the project team via phone calls and WebEx meetings, and enabled the engineer to understand the actual geometry of the steelwork members so that he could evolve the unique connection designs required for the five hundred-odd individual connections.

In consultation with the detailers’ geometry constraints, the connections were then able to be engineered via simple hand sketches without the need for traditional (and very formal) connection design documentation. This collaboration on the connections saved the project huge amounts of time in achieving complex connections that worked the first time, avoided long-winded formal RFI processes, and removed the need to formalise the connection designs on drawings.

From the final connected steelwork model, BDS Vircon then exported 3D files to the cladding contractor as the basis for his cladding set-out and manufacture. And the same files were also provided to the fire sprinkler and decking supply contractors for their set-outs and manufacturing.

This ability to constantly import and export data from the 3D models saved the project a huge amount of time and effort in avoiding the need to provide formal documentation to all parties. The collaborative process to evolve the highly complex nature of the final steelwork’s geometry would not have been possible without the use of the BIM models.

The collaboration required a willingness from all of the parties to work together to find the most cost-effective solutions.

But that willingness to collaborate helped make the project a great success story for model collaboration. And shows just how much can be made possible through the use of these latest modelling technologies.

For more information about this article, please visit www.awardmagazine.com.au/featurededitorial

Paul McLeod Pacific Computing Award | 25

Feature supplement

Interior Fittings & Environmentally Sustainable Development: The Current Reality

By Robyn Baird

A handsome interior fitout created primarily from recycled timber, which lines the walls, ceilings and surrounds the structural support beams

With the rapid adoption of greener, more sustainable materials and techniques, the need to achieve an acceptable standard of Environmentally Sustainable Development (ESD) compliance for both new and existing buildings is being demanded by the construction industry now, more than ever before. And this is not only true of the buildings themselves; with the newfound prevalence of green interior fit outs and retrofits, the contents required to fill these work spaces require ESD compliance as well.

Furniture, Fittings & Equipment (FF&E), although essential, have always been treated as something of an afterthought by the construction industry. But imagine trying to start work in a brand new building, without a workstation, telephone, computer, or even a chair to sit on! Without adequate, fit-forpurpose furniture and equipment, a business’ capacity to meet the needs of both its employees and clients can be seriously impeded. FF&E typically comprises workstations, desks, meeting

tables, chairs, shelving, communications & IT equipment, printers, photocopiers, whitegoods & electrical appliances, the list goes on.

Professional FF&E Consultants, those who manage the budgeting, scheduling, specification, procurement and logistics of FF&E for commercial work spaces, have recognised the need to implement ESD compliant conventions for the FF&E being sourced for a broad range of project types, including Education, Healthcare, Offices, Hotels, Institutional Facilities and other Public Works Buildings.

The impact of unsustainable development on both natural environments and internal building environments has been well documented, with scientific research of the impacts on native habitats and resources; as well as studies of the impacts on staff, and the increase of “sick building syndrome” in internal building environments. And as a result, there is now a growing awareness as to the pollutants emitted

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from both the buildings themselves and the furniture and equipment within them. This has put public expectation on both government and private enterprise to start implementing ESD practices which are practical, responsible, achievable, measureable and environmentally sound.

The implementation of ESD for FF&E manufacturers can be likened to the introduction of Quality Assurance in the mid ‘90s, where mandatory compliance criteria can create difficulties in its inception as suppliers and subcontractors prepare for this new industry benchmark. While some ESD criteria already exists in the manufacturing industry, more and more suppliers are becoming aware of the preference and/ or demand to provide ESD compliant items to different projects, and are implementing innovative designs and manufacturing techniques to achieve these desired ESD outcomes. Though, regrettably, the number of ex-shelf ESD compliant FF&E products and suppliers is still quite small.

Assessing Internal Environments The mainstream tools currently being used to quantify ESD capabilities for both Greenfield and Brownfield sites are the Green Star rating tools, developed and implemented by the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA). Green Star is a certified building rating tool, with evaluation calculators, which uses a points-based rating system built on pre-determined criteria for individual credits contained within each tool. The rating tool is typically used for projects under development, but can be used for assessment post-construction.

Currently, there are few suppliers who are capable of meeting the full ESD criteria with existing ex-shelf products.

The majority of suppliers are not yet fully ESD prepared and are underresourced; already cutting costs and margins to remain in business. At the same time, these suppliers are being asked to cope with additional cost implications stemming from the more complex tender documentation required when ESD compliance is mandatory. The effort involved in obtaining formal product certification such as GECA might push suppliers above the 10% rule of thumb for time vs cost in submitting tenders.

Mandatory ESD compliance being applied to individual products will also constrict the field of tenderers able to meet the compliance criteria for any one item, in some cases to the point of a sole source for procurement.

In essence, the current framework for ESD with regards to the FF&E required for a project consists of the following base criteria: • • • • • •

low VOC & Formaldehyde content sustainable timber environmentally innovative design eco-preferred content durability environmental management systems • product stewardship • design for disassembly.

Other criteria may be applicable depending upon the rating tool being

used and the intended ESD outcome for the project.

Environmental Labeling Documentationandwarrantedcertification to support these criteria can be complex and difficult for manufacturers to obtain.

Currently, the only recognised Australian ESD certification for FF&E products is the Good Environmental Choice Australia (GECA) eco-label. Some international certifications are also acceptable but may not achieve the same rating as the GECA eco-label. These include Environmental Choice New Zealand, Der Blaue Engel Jury Umweltzeichen, NASAA & Nordic Environmental Label, amongst others.

Even with these eco-labels as a guide to what are acceptable standards for FF&E, the application of ESD in Australia using GreenStar is very centric to the GBCA standards, which do not relate well to all overseas manufacturers. Some of Australia’s largest manufacturing sources such as China are not yet able to fully meet the GBCA compliance criteria and certification for their products.

Likewise, the documentation required as evidence to prove ESD compliance adds considerable effort to the tender evaluation process. This is especially true where suppliers do not have formal certification for their tendered product, and are required to provide other documentation at tender as evidence.

Restrictions are placed on submission of evidence, and trying to figure out exactly what is, and what is not acceptable for rating assessment is quite onerous and confusing for suppliers.

This is particularly evident where products comprise both GECA & nonGECA rated components, for example, a table may have a GECA rated laminate top, but a non-GECA rated base, requiring the product to be broken down into its sub-components for evaluation, with each sub-component evaluated individually, before being combined to give an overall percentage score or rating to determine ESD compliance.

Care must be taken by the FF&E Consultant - It is easy for a supplier to just say “yes, the product is compliant”, without considering the effort actually

required to be compliant. It is often not until the supplier is asked to provide evidence of compliance, that they realise the complexity involved, and in many cases, may not be able to fulfill the compliancy requirements with their existing product range.

Ensuring correct procedural documentation is collected is vital in providing evidence that the sourcing of materials and manufacturing of a product is in accordance with the requirements of the credit criteria.

An example of this is the Timber Credit, which requires Chain of Custody documentation, which can only be obtained by certified suppliers and manufacturers. If no Chain of Custody is proven then the supplier is open to liability in a very real manner, and thus his costs also may include insurance to cover such risks.

Sustainable Life Cycles Another aspect of ESD in FF&E to be taken into consideration is how the durability of any one particular item can assist a project’s long-term costs. Providing a durable product with longevity, reduces the need for replacement purchasing. This aspect can be identified through life cycle cost analysis, illustrating the financial benefits to be gained by procuring ESD compliant items. The ability to be able to replace sections of a desk, desk tops made from compact laminates lasting 30 years as opposed to traditional laminate boards of a lesser time, are considerations in the initial upfront procurement strategy.

While it may be more expensive to initially procure some ESD compliant items, their performance and longevity make better financial sense in the long run.

For building owners and operators, the final outcome is worth the effort of ensuring ESD compliance. Not only its impact on the overall quality of the project, but for the global environment as well. And whilst these early stages of ESD application are difficult, given time they will become second nature to many, if not most, suppliers.

Award | 27

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AWARDWORTHY: EPPING CHATSWOOD RAIL LINK

Underlined: The Epping to Chatswood Rail Link 89 years. It’s a long time for a good idea to be brought to fruition, especially with the breakneck pace of development in the 20th and early-21st centuries. But, as they say, all good things take time, and so it is that an East-West rail link on the northern side of Sydney Harbour; first proposed in 1920 by Dr. John Bradfield, the designer of the Sydney Harbour Bridge; has opened to passengers in 2009‌

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Photo courtesy of AW Edwards

Main: The exterior of the newly upgraded Epping Station Right: The entry cavern at the new Macquarie University Station

The original plan, and various revisions of it, were all scuttled by the Great Depression; and then largely forgotten with the rapid rise to prominence of the motorcar in the 20th century. But in 1995 the NSW government started analysing its options for the link once again. This led to their 1998 ‘Action for Transport 2010’ report, which called for a solution to alleviate congestion on the western and south-western rail lines as well as the provision of a service to the expanding business, educational and residential populations around the North Ryde area.

The report, in turn, became accepted as an in-principle agreement for a new 12.5km twin-tunnel underground railway line from Chatswood on the North Shore Line, to Epping on the Northern Line; along with a redesign of the existing Epping Station; a

redevelopment of Chatswood Station; and three completely new underground stations at North Ryde, Macquarie Park and Macquarie University. The plan was approved in February 2002, and construction began in November of that year, with a Theiss Hochtief Joint Venture handling the tunnelling and civil works; HASSELL’s and A W Edwards handling the design and construction of the stations respectively.

The project was delivered by the NSW Government’s Transport Infrastructure Development Corporation for handover to the CityRail network’s owner and operator RailCorp.

All told, this Epping to Chatswood Rail Link (ECRL) cost $2.35 billion and stands as NSW’s largest infrastructure project in recent history. So what goes into such a mammoth project, when the sheer scope of it is a complexity in and of itself?

Photo courtesy of Bob Peters

AWARDWORTHY: EPPING CHATSWOOD RAIL LINK

Main: The Epping to Chatswood Rail Link Tunnel Top Right: The Tunnel Boring Machine breaking through at Epping Station Photos courtesy of Bob Peters

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The Tunnelling In all, 25km of tunnel was excavated simultaneously by a pair of enormous, 7.2m diameter Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM). The excavation commenced in September of 2003 and took nearly two years to complete.

TBMs are massive train-like machines with large, circular rotating heads fixed with powerful cutting wheels. Behind the cutting wheels is a conveyor system that removes the spoil, and behind and around the conveyor system is a set of hydraulic jacks that push the TBM forward in an overlapping motion. The two TBMs used on the ECRL were 210m long and weighed in at 1,060 tonnes each.

The ECRL’s tunnels are single-track and fire-separated, with platform-level walkways that run along one side of each tunnel, they also feature cross passages at approximately 240-metre intervals for access and emergency evacuations. The tunnels’ ventilation system runs longitudinally and is coordinated with smoke exhaust systems at each station. All of which brings them in line with global best practice standards.

From an engineering perspective the two most impressive aspects of the ECRL tunnels were the cut and cover tunnel constructed in order to cross the Lane Cove River, and the advanced vibration reduction methods

employed on the tracks to minimise vibration from trains being transmitted through the rock to the surface, causing regenerated noise.

The lowest point of the ECRL sits beneath the Lane Cove River in a national park. The original designs called for a bridge crossing, which would minimise issues with track gradients and simplify the crossing.

However this was revised to a tunnel solution to minimise impacts to the national park. Though this of course created additional challenges for the crossing, as TIDC’s Executive Program Director Scott Lyall explains, “To minimise the impact on track gradient, the crown of the tunnel crossing had to run just 1.5 metres below the riverbed.

As a result, the TBM driven tunnel was replaced in this section by a cut and cover technique with construction within a cofferdam.”

The cofferdam was half the width of the river and used in a two-stage process, to provide a dry working environment whilst maintaining river flow throughout the construction. As Scott Lyall explains, “Upon completion of the first half of the tunnel, the coffer dam was built across the opposite half of the river and the process repeated.

The cut and cover box tunnel was sized to allow the passage of the TBMs; the TBMs entered the completed river

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Bottom Right: The Tunnel Boring Machine naming and launch

crossing less than 15mm off alignment, allowing the machines to continue unhindered to Chatswood.”

Minimising noise from the trains on residents above the tunnels was the other key concern of the tunnel construction; the Minister for Planning’s Conditions of Approval for the ECRL specified stringent criteria for ground-borne vibration and associated regenerated noise created by the trains travelling through the tunnels.

The project team met the criteria by implementing two separate track types in the tunnels; as David Coker, TIDC’s Technical Manager explains, “In much of the tunnels, resilient rail fasteners are fixed directly to a reinforced concrete slab laid on the concrete tunnel floor.

However in tunnel sections closer to the surface, or under vibration/noise sensitive sites, the concrete track slab is isolated from the tunnel structure by rubber bearings.” This ‘floating’ slab track design provides exceptional isolation from the vibration of the tracks, which is what transmits sound to the surface. “The design involved track slabs about 20m in length,” David Coker continues, “with longitudinal and lateral restraint provided within the slab, by means of a ‘shear key’ rather than enclosing the sides of the slab. This allows for an open structure that facilitates ongoing inspection and

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AWARDWORTHY: EPPING CHATSWOOD RAIL LINK

Photo courtesy of Bob Peters

The entry into the new Macquarie Park Station showing the amount of daylight penetration the entry cavern, escalators and lifts receive

site,” Theiss’ Garry Ewen explains, “both to restore the convict-built river embankment’s stone facing as well as to replant at the top of the river bank.

In all we planted roughly 14,000 trees and plants across the entire project.”

The Stations The rebuilt stations at Epping and Chatswood and the brand new underground stations at North Ryde, Macquarie Park and Macquarie University are the public faces of the ECRL and have to support a combined capacity of 64,000 passengers per day, so the design brief for the stations was that they should be ‘world class’ and ‘set the benchmark for a new generation of public transport for Sydney.’

“Underground stations have many challenging technical requirements.”

Explains HASSELL’s designer, Geoff Crowe, “Our challenge was to integrate these requirements while giving priority to the passengers’ experience of the stations, ensuring that the circulation is clear and intuitive; that the public spaces are safe and secure; and that the penetration of daylight into the stations is maximised.”

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the new underground stations is the sense of spaciousness and light that has been achieved in, what are essentially, deep underground caverns. “We exploited the natural qualities of the Hawkesbury Sandstone to create wide spanning vaults for the platform and concourse caverns.” Crowe says, “By uplighting the ceiling and wall linings we’ve given the caverns a light, airy feel that helps counteract the sense of

h

replacement of bearings, if required, in the future.” This new form of floating track slab was developed by Thiess Hochtief and their designers specifically for the project, and is the first time the technique has been used in Australia.

Environmental concerns played a significant part in the tunnelling, especially as the tunnels ran underneath the national park, and required considerable surface works as they crossed the Lane Cove River. Endangered species in the national park were monitored to ensure that the construction didn’t impact their habitats.

During the tunnelling over 2.4 million tonnes of Hawkesbury sandstone was excavated – that’s approximately a staggering 122,000 truck loads of material – fortunately, nearly all of this spoil was recycled, with the majority used on the construction of the Westlink M7 motorway.

In addition, a water treatment plant was built at the new Lady Game Drive Service Facility (a tunnel emergency egress point) to treat the naturally occurring groundwater that enters the tunnels. The water is transported to the plant through a combination of gravity flow and pumping stations inside the tunnels. During construction a temporary plant treated over 1.2 billion litres of water before it was either re-used for cleaning and dustsuppression, or discharged back into the local creek system.

After construction, all of the worksites were revegetated and additional vegetation offsets were provided to compensate for the permanent vegetation that had been removed. “We undertook considerable landscaping at the Lane Cove River

32 www.awardmagazine.com.au/featuredprojects

claustrophobia usually associated with deep underground spaces.” To aid this, the stations’ glazed entry pavilions were specifically designed to admit daylight deep into the entry shafts, so that passengers would be drawn to the daylight as they leave the stations.

In order to facilitate the stations’ design, high-end computer modelling was used to cater for the fire safety, pedestrian flow, acoustic and lighting requirements of the stations.

Computational fluid dynamics were used to model the movement of smoke ensure that the stations will remain tenable for escape in a range of fire scenarios; pedestrian flow modelling was used to test the capacity of circulation elements to accommodate the forecast passenger demands; acoustic modelling informed the placement of acoustic absorbent finishes and verified the placement and type of loudspeakers required by the stations; and lighting models verified the ability of the glazed canopies to admit sufficient daylight to the entry caverns maximise the efficiency of the interior lighting design.

With 100 year life spans, the fit and finish and overall quality of construction for the new stations had to be exceptionally high to ensure the stations will remain comfortable and appealing well into the future.

All of which combines to offer a world class underground rail link to the growing populations around the North Ryde and Macquarie Park areas. It may have taken 89 years, but Bradfield’s vision of an East West rail link is now a reality.

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straight talk

straight talk with ROBIN MELLON Green Star Executive Director Green Building Council of Australia

In light of a number of factors; including the recent Davis Langdon report on the potential of retrogreening Australian office stock, and recent trends towards interior retrofits, and sustainable interiors; we sat down with Robin Mellon, the Green Building Council of Australia’s (GBCA) Green Star Executive Director, to discuss the importance of ‘green’ interiors and their impact on our industry… e Perhaps you could start by explaining for us what a ‘green’ interior is, and what it offers over a conventional interior? If we were to put a green interior alongside a regular one, what differences would we notice?

Well a ‘green’ interior is simply one with much less of an environmental impact.

The main differences you’d notice and feel between a ‘green’ interior and a regular one might be: better air quality (through better ventilation); higher comfort levels (through better daylight intrusion and lower levels of pollutants in the air); lower energy bills; lower water bills; more recycled materials/ furniture; and more innovation.

e In terms of interior/exterior measures, what sort of impact do they each have on the environmental performance of a building? Are those impacts quantifiable?

There are basically two sides to measuring environmental performance, the building side of things and the human side. On the building side, your energy, water, waste consumption are all easily quantifiable and their impact can be seen by merely comparing your old water/energy/ waste bills to your new ones. On the human side of things you can look at things like productivity (billable hours, staff turnover rates, absenteeism etc.) to quantify the benefits. For example, in its first year of occupation, Melbourne’s Council House 2 (CH2) saw a 10.9% increase in productivity. If staff salaries are your

biggest expense, then 10.9% is a massive benefit.

The impact can also be seen in rental and resale values – many ‘green’ offices are now showing increased rental values and decreased let-out periods (vacancy rates between tenancies). e The GBCA is standing firmly behind the findings of the Davis Langdon report that state: the green retrofitting of Australia’s existing office stock can provide largescale employment, whilst significantly improvingtheenvironmentalperformance and sustainability of Australia’s existing office buildings. Do you think we are at all likely to see these recommendations embraced? And where do things stand at the moment?

The retrofitting is something the Property Council of Australia call ‘re-lifing’, and during this Global Financial Crisis (GFC) we’ve already seen a considerable amount of it, with a noticeable move away from the construction of new buildings, in favour of refurbishing existing ones instead (though these refurbishments aren’t all ‘green’ ones yet).

I think we’ll see the recommendations embraced, but it’ll be slow. The key issue remains that unless you can make a clear business case for ‘retrogreening’; i.e. ‘this will save us money over the next five years’; in most cases it simply won’t happen. e When dealing with foreign suppliers, is there any way to cope with the differing international green standards applied to foreign products when it comes to Green Star assessment?

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Things become quite tricky here because we have our own set of Australian standards, so when looking at the outcomes for foreign paints/ carpets/materials, for example, you have to ensure that volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions are below certain levels, and that imported building machinery or systems are able to achieve the necessary outcomes.

However, because companies see value in touting their products as ‘green’, we’re always going to see a certain amount of what we call ‘greenwash’ – companies disingenuously spinning their products and policies as environmentally friendly – in the market. This can make it very hard for people to know whether they’re actually buying ‘green’ products or materials.

We’re not the green-police so we can’t do much to stop this, but we are very clear about the benchmarks and the outcomes which should be achieved so that people can make the most informed decisions possible. e Can a green interior still make a positive impact when the rest of a building isn’t green? Or does it negate them?

Absolutely. It does make it harder, and ideally you’d have both the base building and all of the tenants Green Star rated.

But it does make a difference.

For example, at GBCA’s GreenHouse offices we have one floor of a 16-storey building; we have put in grey water tanks to reuse water, as well as energy-efficient, task-based lighting, worm farms and recycled materials and furniture. So our one floor of the building is very green, which means 1/16th of the building is operating very greenly.

Now obviously 1/16th isn’t an awful lot, but it’s a great start and every little bit counts. e Is Australian building legislation headed in directions that support green interiors?

Do you think we will eventually see a day when green interiors are mandated on all new buildings? And are green interiors the sort of thing you can mandate?

Legislation now is heading in the right direction, albeit slowly. The UK, for

example, is way ahead of where we are now in terms of minimums – they have been legislating much higher sustainability requirements for some years now, so people have had to respond to that. That said, I believe there will always be roles for both regulated minimums and for voluntary tools to encourage people to go above and beyond them.

In London, for example, the efficiency levels which projects must achieve in 2016 were released some years ago. So builders started building to those standards immediately - because nobody wants to build buildings that will soon be obsolete, and this has really helped to raise UK standards as a result.

Here in Australia we’re quite a way off that, but a national strategy for energy efficiency has recently come out, and over the next few years there will be an even greater push in education so that people can understand the ‘green’ opportunities that exist. e How do you see the future of green fitouts and retrofits? Where do you think things will be in ten years time?

We’re going to see another few years of direct encouragement; as the strain of the GFC encourages people to look at retrofitting as a cost-effective method of revamping, and improving the value of their buildings.

We’re also going to see a much bigger drive towards green interiors, as companies move towards more task-based office design. And when it comes to fitouts, we’re going to see energy efficiency take a lead role in both building and refurbishment.

We still have a long way to go for more sustainable buildings, but we have to stop looking at buildings just as consumers, because they can be producers – they can produce water and they can produce electricity, and they can contribute rather than just consume – and we all need to work towards that goal if we want real sustainability.

Award | 35

Accessibility Corner

Access to Premises: More Than a Decade in the Making This bridge has been designed so that the paths formed have appropriate gradients, and components such as tactile ground surface indicators and hand rails have been incorporated for people with vision impairments and mobility difficulties

Photo courtesy of Timothy Pearce

In July last year, the Australian Federal Government made a significant declaration by ratifying the United Nations Convention for the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities, thereby establishing a solid commitment to ensure “that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

Prior to this, the federal Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) enacted in 1993 had already brought significant changes to the lives of people with disabilities.

A significant area identified within the act was access to public buildings as well as the goods and services offered within them. No longer was the provision of access for people with disabilities a moral obligation, it became a legislative requirement. With the enactment of the DDA however, the construction industry has seen two separate sets of requirements with regard to access for people with a disability emerge - one set associated with the Building Code of Australia (BCA) and another considered to be in line with the spirit and intent of the DDA. Given this, a large amount of uncertainty exists for both building owners and for people with a disability.

Building owners, developers, designers and the like have been unable to clearly determine their obligations under the DDA; and people with disabilities have been unable to fully participate in the community given the variance, inconsistency, and in many instances, inadequate amenity offered across public buildings.

A draft ‘Access to Premises’ standard under the DDA was released for comment, and has subsequently been assessed within a parliamentary inquiry. The 36 www.awardmagazine.com.au/featurededitorial

resulting report’s findings strongly recommend a timely implementation of this standard in its current form; even though the government (at the time of writing this column) had not yet released its response to the report. In light of the report however, it could be anticipated that the Access to Premises standard will soon be put into effect.

The aims of the standard are to: • Provide clear technical provisions with regard to access under the DDA • Provide consistency and certainty to all stake holders by also incorporating its provisions into the BCA • Ensure that equitable access for people with disabilities can be reasonably achieved and cost effective The new standard will apply to all new and existing public buildings, and is likely to also incorporate access to and within the common areas of residential apartment buildings (Class 2). The standard’s provisions will apply in their entirety to new buildings, inclusively to new parts of existing buildings. Affected parts of existing buildings will see the Access to Premises standard requirements extend to connections from existing entries, sanitary facilities and lifts to new building parts.

A regulatory impact statement for the standard attempted to quantify the costs associated with the introduction of the standard. Predictably, incorporating the standard into new buildings was found to be far more cost effective than retrofitting existing buildings; with cost estimates as low as 1% of the total construction cost in some new developments. Multi-storey heritage buildings were identified as the building types likely to incur the highest costs. This has seen some concessions for existing buildings incorporated, primarily for lifts and accessible toilet facilities, provided they meet the provisions previously considered to be in line with the BCA (essentially a smaller spatial requirement).

The development of an Access to Premises standard has extended over a number of years. Its long awaited implementation is the result of the efforts of many organisations and individuals who have maintained a vision of fairness, equality and dignity for people with disabilities within the larger community. These changes are imperative for allowing people with disabilities to participate in employment and education as well as recreation and leisure; and any costs associated with their implementation should be viewed in light of the great economic advantages this presents to the entire community. More significantly, enormous socio-cultural benefits can be expected into the future through the nurturing of a richly diverse community which embraces and celebrates individual differences and the contribution each person can make.

For more information about this article, please visit www.awardmagazine.com.au/featurededitorial

George Xinos Blythe-Sanderson Group

sustainability corner

RETRO-FITTING IS THE NEW TREND The Australian commercial rental market has been hit hard by the effects of the global financial crisis. But commercial landlords are working hard to secure tenants by re-introducing financial incentives to help cover the costs associated with new interior fitouts.

Team these financial incentives with a plethora of retro-fitting components that are both green and budget conscious, and you can see how, even in this economic downturn, it has become possible for businesses to consider signing new leases whilst still being able to afford to fitout their new spaces.

Fitouts are a key component to any office space and have enjoyed a rather opulent existence until recently; with imported furnishings, corporate artworks and sustainability all in vogue.

However, for obvious reasons, tenants are now opting to simplify their fitouts so that they can be contained within the budgets of the incentives landlords are offering. The goal being to make their office moves ‘cash neutral.’

The purpose of fitouts is also being re-evaluated, as demand grows for them to become more functional and more environmentally conscious. Allowing clients to both cut costs and increase the lifespans of their fitouts.

Ironically, it has been largely due to companies being forced to cut costs by re-using furniture and fittings, reupholstering furniture, and re-covering bench tops and desks that this new wave of green, sustainable fitouts has emerged. Only a year ago, a sustainable fitout would have cost millions more due to companies purchasing state-of-the-art furniture and appliances to comply with green standards.

In the last four to six months, sustainability has become a positive by-product of cost-conscious tenants managing their fitouts to stay within incentive budgets. The resulting push towards recycling and re-using fitout components has meant that ‘green’ fitouts are now actually cheaper to do than non-green fitouts.

Clients are wanting to ensure their budgets are kept low while their new spaces are environmentally sustainable.

And to do this, a lot of the products already in existing spaces are being re-used and adapted for new purposes.

Workstations are being revised and enhanced with custommade shelving in order to maximise usability and provide greater flexibility in workspaces without having to replace entire workstations.

The re-use of joinery carcasses, re-upholstering of chairs, recovering of screens and spray painting of ceiling tiles – instead of merely replacing these features – also updates offices while keeping environmental sustainability at the forefront of each project.

Other, more aesthetic, design changes that have recently started being employed in fitouts include: re-cladding of existing reception counters with new finishes, clever use of graphics to accessorise spaces instead of expensive joinery installations, sculptures and artwork, and adapting partitions for multiple uses such as whiteboards instead of purchasing new whiteboards.

All of these changes save money and reduce wastage.

Reconstitution and recycling of veneers on joinery units, re-use of corporate signage from one building to another, refurbishing existing light fittings instead of replacing them, re-use of door hardware on new doors (including the handles), and re-use of carpets also minimises both cost and waste.

Photo courtesy of Andy Lewis

A new interior retrofit incorporating shelving units, tables and wall partitions all constructed from recycled timber

Some offices are opting for other modern techniques such as exposed ceilings, which create an industrial warehouse look and cut the cost of ceiling grids, tiles and natural floor finishes such as polished floor slabs.

Aside from aesthetic elements, other systems, such as waterless urinals and intelligent light switching, have seen a sudden increase and minimise the costs of energy and plumbing whilst also providing environmentally friendly solutions.

Avoiding Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) products like paints and fabrics can also help maximise the renewable qualities of a surface, by allowing fitout components to continue to be re-used and recycled into the future. Accredited environmental furniture made of sustainable materials will also contribute to how many times a fitout component can be reused.

Retro-fitting will continue to grow as subcontractor trades respond to the demand for newer, more cost effective, retro-fit building options. We are seeing the creation of a new business channel for local industry, one that both supports sustainable design and meets the needs of clients who are working to tight budgets in what remains an uncertain economy.

For more information about this article, please visit www.awardmagazine.com.au/featurededitorial

Andrew Holder TDA Interiors Award | 37

AWARDWORTHY: SYDNEY HARBOUR YHA

Rising from the Ruins: Sydney Harbour YHA

The Education Centre is a free standing building offering a range of education programmes relating to the archaeology of the site

One has to wonder whether we’re taking property development too far when we start building on top of one of the most significant archaeological sites in Sydney. But that's exactly what's happened with the just completed Sydney Harbour YHA hostel in The Rocks...

38 www.awardmagazine.com.au/featuredprojects

the reopening of the former T-shaped laneway system that divides the site into three. With the accommodation wings linked by a glazed stairwell that bridges one of the lanes." explains Tzannes Associates Director on the project, Peter John Cantrill.

"In the north wing the rooms open onto verandahs that surround a central courtyard overlooking the archaeological remains below; and in the south wing continuous balconies surround an atrium that does the same. In addition, there are communal areas for eating and relaxing, as well as a large roof terrace with views of both the city and the harbour." He adds, "The education centre sits separately, looking over the footings and paving of the former buildings and yards. It contains two classrooms that can be joined as one, as well as support facilities."

Upward Thinking The concept for YHA’s bid was developed jointly by architects Tzannes Associates and Consulting Engineers Taylor Thomson Whitting (TTW); the idea was to support the whole hostel on a steel framework above the ruins, landing footings for the building only in areas where it was acceptable to the Heritage Architect. As Ross Lardner, Sydney Harbour YHA’s Manager explains, “Because we couldn’t work on the ground due to the archaeology, we built the Hostel from the sky downwards, which is a pretty unique building requirement.”

“It was decided to take an unusual approach to the construction,” TTW Director Richard Green explains, “We would create a totally steel framed building with timber floors. With building spans the whole width of the construction

h

Renderings courtesy of Built

The Cumberland Street archaeological site is an important slice of Sydney’s history.

Dating back to the convict settlement of the 1790s, it contains the remnants of more than 40 colonial dwellings, including foundations of a house built by George Legg, a member of the First Fleet.

So how can one possibly justify building on such a historical site?

Well the answer, it would seem, is by creating a raised building that spans across the remains, both protecting them and providing secure ongoing access to them.

In January 2006, the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority (SHFA), the statutory body responsible for the site, called for redevelopment proposals that would conserve its valuable historic footprint while restoring public access to it.

As SHFA’s Archaeologist Dr. Wayne Johnson, explains, “YHA’s design was chosen from a range of submissions from designers, conservationists and archaeologists because of its imaginative approach to heritage conservation.”

“With the majority of the new building raised on pillars,” Dr. Johnson continues, “visitors will be able to see more than 90% of the excavated site, whilst the building itself preserves what lies beneath.”

The $25 million, 106 bedroom youth hostel; which will accommodate up to 354 guests; consists of three separate buildings, northern and southern hostel wings to provide the hostel’s accommodation and a single storey education building called The Big Dig Archaeology Education Centre, which will display some of the more than one million artefacts found on the site; including decorative jewellery, children’s toys and Chinese ceramics.

"The buildings are placed so as to enable

Award | 39

AWARDWORTHY: SYDNEY HARBOUR YHA

Photo courtesy of Chi Melhelm

Photo courtesy of Richard Green

Top: The inner atrium of the hostel, showing how the guest rooms open out over the remnants Bottom: Steel columns bear on precast footings designed to limit excavation and wet trades within the heritage remnants during construction. Footings typically are placed off the ground and are dowelled into the rock to ensure stability. The steel structure keeps the footing sizes to a minimum. Cribbs Lane runs between the North and South buildings.

40 www.awardmagazine.com.au/featuredprojects

and steel trusses within the walls. Initially the trusses were to be the full height of the building. But later it was decided to make the trusses one storey high. This enabled more flexibility in the openings at the upper levels.”

As a result, Built, who handled the construction and fitout of the project, had to face all sorts of challenges in the construction. The sensitivity of the site essentially required the entire project to be constructed in the air. No driving was permitted within the site boundaries, and all materials movement onsite had to be done via two cranes.

In order for the raised buildings to work; and for their footings to be able to support them; the buildings had to be lightweight. In order to meet these weight requirements, the design incorporated steel-based structures to significantly lighten the load on the site footings. To further cut down on weight, joists and plywood decking were incorporated to eliminate the need for heavier options such as concrete slabs.

As Cantrill explains, "To minimise the impact of footings on the ruins, the building's structure was designed as a series of three-storey high trusses that allowed us to achieve large spans and limit the number of columns on the narrow precast footings."

It was the use of LiteSteel Beam (LSB) joists; processed by OneSteel Steel & Tube Sydney; in place of timber ones, that allowed the necessary increases in joist length. The design also specified Universal Beams (UB) and Rectangular Hollow Section (RHS) columns. “As the design developed,” Green explains, “the builder was happy to take out all the bracing and rely on the timber floor to act as the horizontal bracing. The timber joists were also replaced by steel joists.” which allowed most of the structure’s horizontal bracing to be removed and saved considerable costs, fabrication and onsite erection time.

The supply and installation of all of the structural steel on the project was handled by S&L Fabrications, “Sydney Harbour YHA was a unique experience for us,” S&L’s Project Manager Subhasis Saha, explains, “Everything was steel, even the floors. Normally you’d use concrete floors, but the need for the structure to be lightweight meant that, in total, we used about 15-16km worth of LSB in the project.”

“Space was very limited on the site,” he adds, “and we had individual trusses of up to 17m long that we had to transport and install on the site, so a lot of ingenuity was required in the design; we prefabricated most of the steel sections offsite to minimise the amount of movement onsite and reduce the risk of damaging the ruins.”

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BUILDING AUSTRALIA WITH YOU

AWARDWORTHY: SYDNEY HARBOUR YHA

“Because we couldn’t work on the ground due to the archaeology, we built the Hostel from the sky downwards, which is a pretty unique building requirement.”

Richard Green

Rendering courtesy of Built

The front of the hostel as it will appear from Cumberland Street

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Eco Thinking YHA already operates eco-hostels in rural areas, such as the Grampians and Apollo Bay in Victoria and the Blue Mountains in NSW, but the Sydney Harbour hostel is the first purpose-built environmentally sustainable hostel they’ve built in a central city location.

For the hostel’s development the YHA’s objectives very much coincided

with those of landowner Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, and as a result, high environmental design targets were set.

To help meet these objectives, Environmentally Sustainable Design consultants, Team Catalyst, were brought in throughout the design and development phase of the project.

"The buildings' passive design was all important to providing appropriate levels of natural light and ventilation as well as shading and insulation." Peter John Cantrill says, "Which should help ensure far lower energy requirements for heating, cooling and lighting; in addition to water conservation and solar water heating measures."

On top of this, the hostel also incorporated: 80,000 litres of rainwater tanks (with the water to be re-used for toilet flushing and potentially laundry); a gas generator to supply over 50% of the hostel’s peak energy demands; key-card activated lighting and air-conditioning in the guest rooms (to maximise energy efficiency); sub-metering to monitor energy usage by area; low VOC and low formaldehyde building materials; environmental choice rubber flooring; and no-spill external lighting.

42 www.awardmagazine.com.au/featuredprojects

A Slice of History Putting people in touch with the site’s fascinating history is perhaps the project’s single most significant element, “The ruins are essentially a lost neighbourhood,” YHA’s Ross Lardner explains, “With sections that date all the way back to the 1790s. However by the end of the 19th century it was viewed as a bit of a slum and the government demolished all the buildings on the site in response to the outbreak of plague.”

“The archeology shows us the lifestyle people were living in these houses,” he continues, “the crockery, the food, the pollen from veggies – they actually show that the people who lived in these dwellings had much better quality of life than we would have assumed from of a slum. We even have examples of how the children were brought up.”

And thanks to a design that both protects and promotes this rich slice of history; once it opens, the Sydney Harbour YHA should provide an exciting new way for both Sydneysiders and visitors to experience Australia’s colonial history in the heart of The Rocks.

h

This protection of the site’s archaeology was a key requirement throughout every stage of the construction; as the ruins had to be protected from the falling objects, concentrated stormwater, and chemical and liquid spills. As Richard Green explains, “We overcame this by building a platform over the whole site using a scaffold as support.” Which Ross Lardner confirms “has left the remains in really good condition considering they’ve had a construction site hovering over them for a year.”

“The all-steel structural system was not the most economical,” Green admits, “but it allowed us to solve the particular problems associated with the site. And, as a result, the construction proceeded smoothly and without any problems.”

All of which has Team Catalyst; who adapted the Green Star commercial building rating scheme for the project (as there is currently no existing Green Star tool for tourist accommodation in Australia); confident that the building is equivalent to a 5 Green Star property – though that assessment remains completely unofficial until an appropriate rating tool can be used by the Green Building Council of Australia to assess the project.

worksafe Corner

HIDDEN CONSTRUCTION INJURIES UNDERMINE INDIVIDUALS AND PROJECTS

Preventing the old ‘brickies back’ (a plight affecting far more trades than just bricklaying in the construction industry) is being targeted in Victoria for the first time in more than a decade.

Graphic television advertisements, backed by workplace inspection campaigns, show the instant consequences of manual handling injuries and slips, trips and falls as bones break, muscles tear and discs rupture.

Unfortunately, these injuries are often not taken seriously, they are written off as ‘accidents’ or seen as ‘just part of the job’.

There might be no ‘blood on the floor’ or spectacularaccident images broadcast on the evening news or the morning paper, but the consequences of these injuries are enormous both for individuals, their employers and the industry.

These injuries account for 60% of all worker compensation claims in Victoria, and they cost the community $600-million dollars a year in medical treatment and rehabilitation bills.

The average cost of treating more than 1800 of these injuries in construction each year is $45,000 per claim, with the average time off work being 10 weeks.

In construction, 74% of people are exposed to a manual handling risk every day, making it Australia’s highest-risk industry.

There are also significant on-costs for employers, who lose productivity and need to either replace injured workers or have others work longer or harder, potentially adding new risks, to keep projects moving.

The issue is not just that ‘something’ might happen today, but that many musculoskeletal injuries take years to repair. There are serious long-term repercussions to them.

It is the reason why safety systems need to be in place all the time.

Safety improvement programs should be targeting injuries that cause: • back pain • muscular strains and sprains • soft tissue injuries to the neck, arms, shoulders and legs • abdominal hernias • carpal tunnel syndrome • tendonitis • fractures and dislocations To help employers, managers and workers understand the hazards they face and how they can prevent them, WorkSafe has developed a new website called ‘Back on Safety’ www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/backonsafety.

The site provides examples of common safety issues and solutions across construction and nine other industry 44 www.awardmagazine.com.au/featurededitorial

sectors, includes safety posters which are ideal for lunchrooms, and also has information on what safety inspectors are looking for when they deal with these issues.

The high rate of injuries caused by poor manual handling techniques and relatively ‘simple’ slips, trips and falls are also being looked at by workplace health and safety regulators across the country.

Getting on top of these issues must become an industry focus.

The effect of not doing so, is that it not only undermines the health and safety of individuals, but it also slows down work and takes skilled and experienced people out of the industry, often for long periods of time.

Balancing both project and human needs, having realistic schedules and the right equipment to do the job safely, alongside a work culture where safety is valued will produce a safer and more viable industry for the future.

What WorkSafe and regulators across the country want, is for every employer and worker to not just think about what should be happening, but to make sure it does.

OHS responsibilities cascade down from principal contractors to sub-contractors and all employees.

Consultation is essential.

Dealing with manual handling injuries and slips, trips and falls requires everyone’s involvement, but the agenda has to be set and maintained by those who control the site. It’s that simple.

John Merritt WorkSafe Victoria

FEATURE PRODUCT SHOWCASE Tactile Ground Surface Indicators

Product Features TGSIs come in two main types: • Warning indicators (dots) and directional indicators (bars) They can be constructed in two ways: • As discrete TGSIs – dots or bars made of one or two materials that are individually affixed to a substrate/surface, or as integrated TGSIs – dots or bars made of the same material and integrated as one consistent mass.

• Whatever your situation and application, DTAC will have a product suitable for your environment. If it doesn't its, their design and fabrication team will create one for you.

Product Applications TGSIs must be installed in accordance with the normative part of AS/NZS 1428.4 (2002) in situations that can be accessed by the general public such as: stairs, ramps, landings, escalators, travelators, pedestrian crossings and waiting platforms.

Product Description Tactiles, part of everyone’s environment Tactile Ground Surface Indicators (TGSIs for short) are part of a global initiative to provide greater access for people in the built environment. TGSIs are primarily designed to give tactile warning to people so that they may safely negotiate the built environment.

“At DTAC we believe that the more people who can interact, access and utilize a built environment, the greater, more meaningful and successful that built environment can be.” said Dean Homicki CEO DTAC Pty Ltd. “We are aware that for some the term Accessibility can imply disability. DTAC adopts an alternate perspective to this, believing that TGSIs can create a greater usability within the context of the urban landscape”.

Through careful planning, consultation and education TGSIs can be introduced to create a truly interactive, accessible and useable environment. Felt under foot, detected by cane, or even read as a light contrast between a surface and a hazard, TGSIs give information to the vision impaired about where they are, where they are going and where they have been.

Whether you are new to TGSIs or are already an experienced user, DTAC can assist you with product selection for an application, product installation, certification, maintenance, and recycling of TGSIs. DTAC is available to assist you in getting your TGSI specification right the first time, ensuring your projects’ compliance with the relevant codes and standards.

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Award | 45

FEATURE PRODUCT SHOWCASE mechanical connection system

Bow-Tie The Danley® loop and Bow-Tie® reinforcement bar connection is an innovative rebar continuity system.

Anchor loops cast into the first pour are connected to second pour splicing loops with the Bow-Tie.® • Negligible deformation under load.

• Bow-Tie® body capacity exceeds capacity of reinforcing bars.

• No special ferrules or threading required.

• Not sensitive to minor slurry contamination.

• Positive locking by wedge effect.

Reusable Bow-Tie Boards The Danley® Bow-Tie® system is a reinforcing bar connection system for concrete structures that provide continuity of the reinforcement through a joint when concrete is placed in two pours.

Reusable concrete rebate board to suit the Danley® Bow-Tie® system.

• 35 mm thickness.

• Made from polyurethane.

• Dimpled finish.

• Jacking nut moulded into board to aid removal.

Product Features The primary role of the Bow-Tie is to act as a mechanical connection system for 12 mm reinforcing bars used in a two-pour process that performs as an equivalent to a monolithically cast slab-to-wall interface with continuous reinforcing through the joint.

Bow-Ties are especially valuable in two areas of construction: • To provide connections for concrete floor slabs, landings and stairs and other concrete elements that are placed at a later time in high-rise buildings where the lift cores and stair cores are slip-formed or jumpformed.

• Precast or tilt-up construction where connections of additional concrete elements are to be made to the panels in a secondary pour.

Product Benefits • Develops full moment capacity at connections between two concrete pours.

• Positive locking by effective wedge effect.

• Connection to second pour reinforcing steel only requires a standard 180 degree loop in reinforcing bar.

• Can accept loops in reinforcing bars bent around mandrels [pins] from 4 to 6 times bar diameter.

• Allows for connections of concrete elements at 90 degrees plus or minus 50 degrees to face of first pour [e.g. stairway stringers to landings].

• Not sensitive to minor concrete slurry contamination.

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FEATURE PRODUCT SHOWCASE Cobiax® void formers

Available Modules Light - flat - biaxial Up to 35% lighter slabs • Reduced deflection • Slim columns • Reduction foundation loads • Biaxial bearing Span • Up to 20m span • No beams • Up to 40% less columns Open Plan • Spacious area • Open plan flexibility • Better user acceptance • Eased change of use, horizontal and vertical • Column supported flat slab Earthquake resistance • Weight reduction • Limits damage risk Resource effectiveness • Concrete reduction • Reduction of building elements • Reduction of reinforcement • Reduction of C02 emissions • Optimised construction time • Sustainability

Product Applications Cobiax® void formers are available in various sizes to suit the needs of your slab thicknesses from 200mm to 600(+)mm. The cage modules are available in two standard executions; SlimLine and Eco-Line.

We are keen to provide preliminary advice for your projects by optimising the ratio:- slab thickness : span : loads.

Product Features Cobiax® is available as cage module CBCM, linked cage module CBLM and semi-precast CBSP and is suitable for in situ applications as well as for the combination with precast slabs. The Cobiax® technology can be used with other building techniques such as post tensioning and composite structures.

Cobiax® can be adapted to any layout. The arrangement of the Cobiax® void formers and the size and shape of the panel are determined by the project requirements.

The Cobiax® technology optimises the lifecycle cost and can also decrease the over-all building cost. In the diagram aboveleft, the real-case example illustrates this fact.

(Eco-Line, insitu).

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Award | 47

FEATURE PRODUCT SHOWCASE window film

Film Pacific Product Description Eco friendly, cost effective with a high-class appearance window film is the answer for your next project. Window film is applied to the interior or exterior surface of glass windows and doors. Our film has a powerful adhesive on one side that permits secure bonding to the glass. As well as a clear, scratch resistant coating on the outer side preventing the exposed surface from being damaged.

Product Applications Window film can be used for variety of purposes. Film Pacific imports and sells the largest range of window films for, commercial, domestic, safety, security, anti-vandal, anti-graffiti and automotive applications. Additionally we lead the way with a selection of decorative and graphics film.

Product Benefits Some of the benefits for your next project include, reducing energy bills, increasing the energy rating and keeping your costs down. Film Pacific’s solar control films prevent up to 83% of solar heat passing through a glazing system ensuring your project harnesses the ultimate in energy conservation. A buildings internal temperature becomes more stable with less heat escaping in winter or entering the building in summer.

Product Type Night Owl 22 is a new generation of architectural film. Nano particles replace traditional reflective layers creating a film with ultra-low interior reflectivity, high heat rejection, guaranteed durability and excellent glare reduction so your clients get the best possible outcome when night vision is required.

With all the concerns about global warming, it is also nice to know that Night Owl 22 is a green product.

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FEATURE PRODUCT SHOWCASE TEXTURAL GLASS - THE IMPRESS RANGE

Cydonia Product Description Cydonia the Glass Studio is the leader when it comes to architectural art glass and with this new range of textural glass, incorporating tight lines and precise repetition of pattern, we are world first.

With simple sleek designs, our Impress range of textural glass is able to fit into just about any glass application, keeping a modern look that won’t date.

The Impress range of textures was five years in the making and has had an extra two years since in production.

Proudly Australian owned and made, Cydonia’s textural glass has been exported all over the world.

Product Applications and Features • Cydonia’s Impress range of textural glass incorporates cutting edge technology in glass that has never before been able to be produced.

• The Impress range of textural glass features tight and accurate design that is easily able to be customised to suit your needs.

• Can be used for just about any application where you would use normal, flat glass, however without the need for constant cleaning.

• Without the need for constant cleaning, Cydonia’s Impress range of textural glass is low maintenance and more eco-friendly.

• Gives you privacy while still allows light to be transmitted through.

• Able to be used in commercial and residential spaces.

• For strength and safety, the glass is toughened to Australian Standards and is able to be made using 6mm, 10mm and 12mm thicknesses of glass in a variety of colours.

• Able to be double glazed.

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Award | 49

FEATURED PRODUCT SHOWCASE underFLOOR HEATING SOLUTIONs

Product Description Efficient and effective heating solutions for all building projects.

Comfort Heat Australia has access to qualified engineers and overseas experience to guarantee the design of heating solutions into any building specification. Having access to hydronic and electric underfloor heating technologies as well as importing components from overseas, maximum benefits can be realised for all heating requirements in residential, commercial and industrial applications.

Hydronic Specifications Hydronic floor heating applications can be installed within a cement slab, over the slab in an 80mm screed bed or over structural flooring directly under timber floors. The hydronic floor heating system uses Rehau pink PeX pipe, manifolds imported from Italy, storage tanks as required by the design, pumps imported from Italy and heat sources such as natural gas, electric heat pump, geothermal heat pump or wood fired stove with a wet back and to a more limited extent, solar and LPG gas. Hydronic underfloor heating systems are the only way to heat from the floor up and only need a water temperature of 40 deg C to operate.

All the systems are controlled by a thermostat with a floor sensor so the temperature of the floor will not rise above the set temperature, usually 25 deg C. The system can be integrated into existing hydronic systems using radiators so renovations to existing structures can gain the benefits of the in floor heating systems.

Electronic Floor Heating Specifications Electric floor heating is provided by installing electric cables in the floor and passing 240V through them. Just as the wires in an electric blanket get warm, the floor heating cables are designed to get warm and impart the heat generated into the surrounding cement. Different cables are manufactured to suit various floor heating applications. Under ceramic tiles is the most popular application for floor heating and the cables can be installed in a 20mm screed bed or in tile glue using an ultra-thin mat. Under carpet floor heating is also available with the flat braided cable being installed directly under the carpet on the underlay. There is a cable system designed to heat under a floating timber floor which uses a foil top to spread the heat evenly under the wood.

Larger areas can be heated by installing the cable into the slab which can then bank heat and utilise electricity when it is at its cheapest. All these systems draw electricity to heat the floor, and in bathrooms this is very small in relation to an average household. However, once the area to be heated gets larger there needs to be some energy management included with the design and areas over 100 square metres are ideal opportunities for hydronic floor heating systems.

Product Benefits By having access to many technologies to ensure the efficiencies of heating spaces with underfloor heating guarantees the best design for any particular project. Comfort Heat offers: • Qualified design staff • Access to overseas technology for components and experience • Full range of underfloor heating products • Both Hydronic and Electric systems to get the best balance for the heating system required • Commitment to efficient heating designs and use of sustainable power options • Over 10 years experience in the underfloor heating industry

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FEATURE PRODUCT SHOWCASE Protective coatings

Product Features PSX700 is a high performance finish coating with a silicate backbone that makes it almost impervious to the damaging effects of the intense Australian sunlight. It offers the best UV resistance of any high performance protective coating.

• Better resistance to chalking and fading than the best polyurethanes • Outstanding grafitti resistance • Superior corrosion protection • Full colour range • Free of isocyanates • Low VOC, 120gm/L • Class A fire resistance • 2-Coat High Performance System

Product Applications PSX 700 is used as a protective coating on steel and concrete where corrosion protection, UV stability and chemical and graffiti resistance are priorities. It has a proven track record of 12 years on major structures around the world, including Australia.

• Bridges and Stadiums • Shopping Complexes and Airports • Commercial Buildings • Processing Plants and Refineries • Offshore Platforms, FPSO • Tanks • Wind Turbines • Passenger Trains • Locomotives and Rolling Stock

Product Description PPG now own the sole rights to manufacture and distribute PSX 700 Epoxy Polysiloxane. PSX700 is a patented engineered siloxane coating which embodies the properties of both a high performance epoxy and a polyurethane in one coat. This multipurpose coating offers “breakthrough” weather resistance and corrosion control. A traditional 3-coat polyurethane system can be replaced by a 2-coat PSX 700 system with superior performance.

Notable Installations • Waubra Wind Farm • Telstra (Olympic) Stadium - Stadium • Southern Cross Train Station • Adelaide International Airport • Geelong Stadium • Melbourne Aquatic Centre • Croydon Aquatic Centre • Yarra Precinct Pedestrian Bridge • Roxby Downs Olympic Dam • M7 Bridges - Sydney • Port Adelaide Bridge • Millennium, OSCAR, EMU passenger trains • Caltex, Alcoa, Shell - land storage tanks

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Award | 51

FEATURE PRODUCT SHOWCASE LED TECHNOLOGY

Product Applications Commercial lighting applications include a wide variety of businesses, from restaurants and bars to retail outlets.

Interesting effects can be created using LED lighting with vibrant colours.

Alternatively, LEDs can be used to replace existing lighting, providing significant savings on power.

All of our standard LED lighting products can be used in a large number of ways in the commercial market.

LEDs may be small, but new highbrightness models are producing a large considerable amount of light.

LED Benefits • Energy Efficient • Low Wattage • Low Heat • Long Life • Extremely Robust

Custom landscape lighting Product Description Innovative Lights specialises in architectural, commercial and domestic lighting systems.

First used as status and indicator lamps, and more recently in under-shelf illumination, accent lighting, and directional marking applications, high-brightness LEDs have emerged within the last six years. But only recently have they been seriously looked upon as a feasible option in general purpose lighting applications.

Before you recommend or install this type of lighting system, you should understand the basic technology upon which these devices are based.

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are solid-state devices that convert electric energy directly into light of a single color. Because they employ “cold” light generation technology, in which most of the energy is delivered in the visible spectrum, LEDs don't waste energy in the form of non-light producing heat. In comparison, most of the energy in an incandescent lamp is in the infrared (or non-visible) portion of the spectrum. As a result, both fluorescent and HID lamps produce a great deal of heat.

With a strong and professional R&D team, Innovative Light Systems keeps following the frontiers of science and technology from very beginning to the end, and has obtained a number of products based on its advanced research and design, such as Street Lighting with its unique lighting array and LED replacement fluorescent tubes, the LED lighting market has created a new concept in the field of LED lighting, of which is composed from retrofit LED lighting series (MR, PAR, T8-tube, Landscape Lighting, Street-lighting series, Architectural, Commercial & home lighting, etc). Complete solid state lighting systems for general and professional usages.

Special illumination and LED backlighting system for in-door & out-door lighting requirements.

Innovative Light Systems

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Product Features In our indoor range we offer, LED Bulbs, LED Spots, LED Tubes and much more in all brightness’ from 1W LEDs to 20W LEDs which offer competitively the same brightness as normal incandescent bulbs.

Today, we manufacture and design a complete range of both indoor LED Lighting, Architectural, Commercial and outdoor LED Lighting.

All our products are manufactured to ISO9000 and RoHs standards.

Quality is very important to us and therefore we offer between 1 to 2 Year Guarantees on our products to support our strict quality standard.

The products go through a very strict testing process to ensure they conform to our standards of being long lasting, durable and without light loss.

Custom LED lighting in bar areas

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ASSOCIATION MATTERS

A green dawn for sustainable communities The cities of tomorrow present both challenges and opportunities.

The UN forecasts that today's urban population of 3.2 billion will rise to nearly 5 billion by 2030. By then, three out of five people will live in cities and the world will no longer be a global village but a global city.

With this in mind, we must recast our vision of urban development and look to a new sustainable framework that creates the smallest possible ecological footprint. To do this, we must move beyond merely greening our buildings and begin to look at how to green our precincts and our communities.

Since the introduction of Green Star environmental rating tools in 2003, Australia’s property and construction industry has embraced sustainable building practices to the extent that 11% of Australia’s CBD office space is now Green Star certified.

However, industry leadership must now be re-engineered to ensure we

can rapidly take on the challenge of greening our cities.

The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) and the Victorian Government’s urban development agency, VicUrban, recently committed to a partnership agreement for a national framework to drive the development of sustainable communities and precincts. However a framework devoted to precincts or communities will be more complex than the Green Star rating tools developed for specific building types, as many urban precincts embrace multiple uses.

In June, the GBCA and VicUrban held a visioning workshop with 48 representatives from Australia’s development and building industry, leading private-sector developers, including Stockland, Lend Lease, MAB, Leighton, Mirvac, Grocon and GPT Group, as well as the three tiers of government to outline what a framework could look like.

The desired framework will inform consumers about achievable and desirable levels of sustainability, and act as a mech-

anism for industry to raise standards and deliver best practice against measurable benchmarks.

Both the GBCA and VicUrban agree that while government regulation can play an important role in mandating higher standards for some aspects of urban development, optimal outcomes can only be achieved through partnership, industry leadership and informed consumer choices.

We have a vision for sustainable communities that are more than just sensitive to their environment. In the future, we hope to see sustainable communities that meet the diverse needs of both existing and future residents and workers, and contribute to a higher quality of life.

That’s our challenge. That’s our opportunity.

Romilly Madew Green Building Council of Australia

ACEA supports building a low-carbon economy with energy efficient buildings Due to the release of a number of significant reports on energy efficiency in the last couple of years (ASBEC’s the Second Plank Report (2008); McKinsey & Co’s Pathways to a low-carbon economy to name two), improvements in energy efficiency, to the commercial and residential building sectors in particular, are now well understood as the easiest, cheapest actions available to reduce, conserve and better utilise energy.

Publicly funded retrofits are one way to help this process along and achieve deep GHG abatement in Australia. They require government-funded assistance (that is grants, subsidies and rebates).

However, funding should be made available for, and limited to, investment opportunities with a proven ability to reduce energy consumption.

Public funding of building retrofits reduces the ‘payback gap’ for energy consumers and provides additional incentives to undertake investment

in energy efficiency. Public funding would also help to overcome the split incentives issues faced by rental markets in both the residential and commercial sectors.

In response to calls for this work to proceed, the Government have initiated the Green Building Fund ($90m over 5 years) to reduce the impact of Australia's built environment on GHG emissions, by reducing the energy consumed in the operation of existing commercial office buildings.

Grants ranging from $50,000 to $500,000 are available, for up to 50% of project costs.

The ACEA also supports the National Strategy for Energy Efficiency which is centred around the four key themes of: 1. Assisting households and businesses to transition to a low-carbon future; 2. Reducing impediments to the uptake of energy efficiency; 3. Making buildings more energy efficient; and 4. Government working in partnership

and leading the way.

Through these various measures, incentives and strategies, the ACEA’s members can assist Australia in achieving deep GHG emissions and promote energy security. The ACEA supports a range of strategies which take a long term approach to planning, funding and developing our energy capabilities in addition to a focus on energy efficiency, new technology and skills development will ensure Australia is well positioned for prosperity in the future.

The Association of Consulting Engineers Australia (ACEA) is an industry body representing the business interests of firms providing engineering, technology and management consultancy services.

Caroline Ostrowski Association of Consulting Engineers Australia Award | 53

ASSOCIATION MATTERS

The Key To Thermal Efficiency Energy efficient designs which incorporate the high thermal mass of precast concrete are predicted to reduce building energy consumption by an estimated 20%.

Leaving precast concrete exposed internally is becoming an increasingly popular trend in construction, as passive solar design principles encourage the use of exposed precast floors and walls to absorb heat during the day and then release it back into the building at night when external temperatures fall.

Insulated walls using either precast concrete sandwich panels (which have insulation sandwiched between an internal precast structural section and a thinner external precast section) or internal precast panels (which are insulated then externally clad), maximises thermal mass benefits to ensure that a more constant temperature is maintained inside a building year-round.

Precast sandwich panels also have the benefit of providing a durable, fire-safe

external building envelope. Precast elements can also incorporate recycled materials (such as such as fly ash, slag, silica fume, recycled aggregates and water) to enhance their green benefits.

The International Centre and Business Building at Deakin University in Victoria, and Cimitiere House, Tasmania’s first five Green Star commercial building, are both good examples of this. With exposed offform precast soffits, they also incorporate heating/cooling systems in which warmed or cooled air is distributed through the cores of hollowcore precast planks at low speeds, and then ducted into the interior spaces. This allows prolonged contact between the air and the slabs, and enables the concrete to behave as a passive heat exchange; releasing heat to, or absorbing heat from, the air in the slabs.

This stops external temperature variations from being reproduced inside the building, because the building’s thermal mass delays the onset of the maximum

heat level reached during the day long enough for it to be counterbalanced by the cool of the night.

Precast flooring has an additional green benefit. AS3600 recognises the high quality of precast concrete and rewards the user of precast with reduced concrete to cover over reinforcement. In addition, the physical size of precast elements can be reduced by up to 15% when compared with in-situ concrete. In addition, most precast concrete flooring systems offer savings of up to 50% in concrete and reinforcing steel due to the structural efficiency of their voided or ribbed crosssections. The advantages in dematerialisation offered by precast are a benefit to our environment that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Sarah Bachmann National Precast Concrete Association Australia

A Melbourne Metro: Vital Infrastructure for a Growing City The $38 billion Victorian Transport Plan, announced by the Government last December, promised big things for Melbourne. One of the biggest, and most ambitious projects, was the commitment to deliver a Melbourne Metro over two stages, with stage one costing over $4.5 billion.

Turning Melbourne’s radial train network into an underground metro will take time and long-term commitment. But for Melbourne to operate as an efficient, world-class city, it is probably the single most important piece of infrastructure to be touted in decades.

The wheels are in motion for this project to commence quicker than expected with Premier John Brumby, announcing that soil and engineering testing works could start before the end of 2009.

The Property Council believes the delivery of major infrastructure projects is vital to stimulating the Victorian economy. Concept designs have been released for stage one of the Melbourne metro development and the govern54 www.awardmagazine.com.au

ment has called for tenders to deliver the project.

Supporting the delivery of major transport infrastructure, such as the Melbourne metro, is the recently announced Major Transport Projects Facilitation Bill. The government estimates that projects could get underway more than a year early through the establishment of a “one-stop-shop” planning and approvals process.

The Property Council has been briefed by the Government on this Bill and supports the concept of the proposed “one-stop-shop” planning and approval process.

The Bill will replace the current approvals regime with a one-stop process that will make Victoria a better place to invest. The aim of the bill will be to provide greater certainty to everyone involved in the approval and delivery of major projects.

There have been concerns raised about the removal of the community’s right to appeal major transport projects as part of this process. It is our understanding though, that the community

will still be engaged as part of the consultation process. The major change is the time at which a judicial appeal can be made – only after the Minister has made a final, publicly tabled, decision about the project.

A one-stop-shop approach to planning approvals for major transport projects is in-line with the Property Council’s policy to fast-track planning approvals. If successful for major transport infrastructure, we would like to see this approach rolled out across the planning system.

The Victorian Transport Plan is a visionary document that needs to be implemented to ensure Melbourne and Victoria maintains its competitive advantage over our eastern seaboard counterparts.

The Property Council is pleased to see the government is acting fast to deliver one of the most important infrastructure projects in Victoria’s history.

Jennifer Cunich Property Council of Australia (Victoria Division)

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The Challenge: High-Performance Buildings The Solution: Bentley

Image courtesy HKR Architects

Image courtesy CH2MHill (B-W Pantex-HVAC Design)

BUILDING INFORMATION MODELLING & MORE Software for the design, construction, and operation of all types of buildings and facilities around the world, from the conventional to some of the most inspiring projects of our time.

For projects small to large, simple to complex, each discipline-specific application provides an informed work environment – from conceptual design through documentation, to coordination and construction.

BUILDING ENERGY DESIGN, ANALYSIS & SIMULATION Bentley’s building performance software applications provide the fastest, most powerful, and most accurate design, analysis and simulation available for building load, plant energy, passive design, and dynamic thermal simulations.

Bentley’s comprehensive suite of software helps professionals productively deliver sustainable high-performance buildings.

GENERATIVE DESIGN SOFTWARE GenerativeComponents® (GC) enables architects and engineers to pursue designs and achieve results that were virtually unthinkable before.

GC facilitates the delivery of inspired sustainable buildings, freedom in form finding, use of innovative materials, exploration of “what-if” alternatives for even the most complex designs.

Open a world of new possibilities while you work more productively than ever before.

www.bentley.com/AW_buildings © 2009 Bentley Systems, Incorporated. Bentley, the “B” Bentley logo, and GenerativeComponents are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

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Image courtesy Thompson, Ventulett, & Associates