A refurbished 1920s cottage for childhood cancer support has opened in Brisbane, thanks to pro bono work. A project led by Thiess in partnership with Childhood Cancer Support (CCS) has resolved an urgent need to expand CCS’s accommodation facilities in Brisbane.
The Thiess Dempsey House Project involved the refurbishing of an existing cottage and building three new units directly behind to provide vital accommodation for families while their children undergo cancer treatment at hospital.
Arup provided pro-bono structural engineering services to Thiess and working with BVN Architects.
Stephen Davies, a senior engineer with Arup said: “The opportunity to work on such a well structured, well supported and worthwhile project was very inspiring.
“Our goal on this project was to work closely with Thiess and the architect to help deliver their vision while contributing to the design solution with a high quality, practical engineering solution.
The units are designed to be self-contained each with two bedrooms, a kitchen, lounge, bathroom and laundry facilities. The redevelopment took place on a small 400 square metre block, is fitted out with rainwater tanks and provides parking and storage.
“The unit complex itself is a fairly straight forward braced steel framed building. One of the more interesting details was at the perimeter corners of the double cantilevering roof,” Stephen said.
“The architect was seeking a slim edge detail avoiding the use of supporting cantilever beams perpendicular to the primary roof purlins. The solution involved the extensive use of the purlins as structural diagonal ridge beams and jack rafters to achieve this detail.”
