Built Wins a MBA Site Safety Award for ‘Outside the Box’ Solution

Published by
Lorenzo Logi
November 16, 2015

Built has won a Site Safety – Commercial Projects $50,000,001 & Over award for the second year running at the Master Builders Association of NSW Excellence in Construction Awards ceremony held on Saturday October 31, 2015.

The award is recognition of the construction company’s work on its ambitious refurbishment for Pembroke Real Estate at 20 Martin Place in Sydney’s CBD. The $110M valued refurbishment presented numerous unusual, project hazards during its demolition and construction stages. One of the most challenging aspects of the project was the necessity to retain the building’s structural steel frame. Overcoming this challenge was critical to ensure the developments commercial viability, achieve it’s environmental objectives and preserve 20 Martin Place’s sizeable 21 storey stature in the heart of Sydney’s CBD.

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The retention of the existing 20 storey steel frame presented Built with significant engineering and safety challenges. Built’s risk analysis identified the potential for the retained concrete encased steel columns to be damaged as a result of demolishing the surrounding concrete structure. Potential damage to this encasement couldn’t easily be identified so to mitigate this risk, Built chose to fully wrap these columns in a protective mesh and ply surrounding. Adopting this approach provided certainty that concrete fragments that might subsequently be dislodge as a result of the continuing top down demolition would be securely restrained. This approach, eliminated the risk of falling debris.

The unique challenges presented by the 20 Martin Place project, required Built to formalise our ‘outside the box’ approach. Built assembled a specialist team of experienced engineers, designers and site personal. The team was tasked to analyse, identify, install, monitor and maintain the necessary engineering controls and temporary works to ensure the project would be safely delivered. Built’s team methodically set about resolving the numerous challenges and ensured the safety of some 1500 construction workers that worked on the project during construction.

Built
built.com.au

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