The initial state winners in the Australian Steel Institute’s national steel awards have been announced for NSW and the ACT.
Kingston Building’s entry for St. John the Baptist Catholic Church building in Woy Woy was named the winning project in the Architectural Steel Design category. The NSW Structural Engineering Design category was won by Arup for the Allianz Centre redevelopment at 2 Market Street, Sydney.
Brookfield Multiplex’s Latitude East building development at World Square in Goulburn Street, Sydney, won the Multi-Level Steel Building category. The RAAF Liquid Oxygen Extraction (LOX) facility in Richmond won the Metal Building Product Design category by project team architects, Campbell Luscombe Folk Lichtman.
Arup’s winning project involved the redevelopment of an outdated three-storey building into a modern commercial tower with a full height glazed atrium, underground car parking, retail outlets and a gym. The existing low-rise retail space was converted into an eight-storey building constructed over an existing three-level underground car park and electrical substation.
A key consideration driving the design of the Allianz Centre was the need to minimise the loads on the existing car park and substation, which could not be moved and needed to remain operational during construction. Rather than using heavy concrete, Arup’s design team used a lighter, steel framed structure to carry the construction on top of the existing substation walls.
The client’s desire to connect the new building to an existing adjacent building created another set of challenges. Floor-to-floor levels equal to those of the adjoining tower were required, so the new floors aligned to allow pedestrian walkways to be built at each level to connect the new and existing floor plates. Arup designed a steel framed atrium with a glass ceiling and steel bridges reaching between the two buildings at each level.
However, alignment of the floor levels resulted in a further challenge: it significantly reduced the ceiling cavity in the new building. This shallow ceiling cavity was unsuitable to contain services such as communications, lighting, electrical cables and air-conditioning and drainage pipes. To overcome this, Arup incorporated the service reticulation within penetrations made through the webs of the composite steel floor beams.
Arup’s design targets a 4.5 star Australian Building Greenhouse Rating. The use of chilled beams rather than air-conditioning ducts, low water consumption fittings, rainwater harvesting and the dimming of light fittings all significantly reduce the building’s energy consumption.
