Project Overview
Hutchinson have been engaged as the Design and Construct Contractor for the conversion of the former police headquarters building at College Street, Sydney into 87 High quality Residential Apartments over 24 levels, and 3 reconfigured basement carpark levels.
Located adjacent to Sydney’s Hyde Park, the project includes the removal of all existing precast façade and the extensive demolition and rebuild of the existing structure to relocate lift shafts and reconfigure the new floor plates. Project Programme is 26 months and when complete the building is set to be the new Benchmark of Quality for apartments in Sydney.
Challenges
High risk nature of the demolition sequences. Safety is crucial. Existing structure being retained and integrated within new floor plates. Creating wet area set downs within the existing structure and floor plates. Stitch on structure to form external terraces and balconies and relocation of lift cores. Services and ceiling co ordination to obtain 2700mm high ceilings working within the constraints of the existing structure to meet SEPP65 being a new authority/BCA requirement.
Success Factors
The project has a very detailed demolition and rebuild sequence that involves numerous work fronts, which have all been programmed to meet at concurrent times. Any potential delay to a particular work sequence, has the potential to have large impacts on programme. The demolition activities are extremely high risk and constant supervision of these work fronts is essential.
Being of very high quality, the apartments finishes are all non typical in terms of layout and attention to detail within the fit out and finishes sequence is of critical importance.
Value Added
Hutchinson Builders during tender phase was able to reduce overall nett programme for the Client by a period of approximately 4 months. Introduced Safety in Design as core principle which led to re design of certain elements such as Roof Access, concrete outline, location of services and some fittings and fixtures. This will ensure the safety of the end user and contractors engaged by the building manager during the life of the building.
Utilised early involvement of specialist D&C Subcontractors to assist with the development of smart design solutions. Investigated the use of latest industry technology products and services such as specialist floor topping compounds and fibre to the Home networking solutions.