Built’s safety performance during the refurbishment of an iconic building in Melbourne’s CBD has won the company the only Excellence in Health & Safety Award at the MBAV Excellence in Construction Awards.

The building, vacant since 1994, is going through a complex refurbishment being executed by Built. The William, located at the corner of William and Little Bourke Streets is being transformed into the city’s newest luxury residential address, complete with room service and a concierge.

Situated in a busy CBD location with tight access constraints, the project required demolition of every façade across two towers over 20 storeys high. Each tower had its footprint enlarged and extended by three storeys to create 529 apartments, serviced apartments, a large office area, retail tenancies, gymnasium and an open roof top pool area.

Built put up a scaffolding approximately 83m high, equating to 23 levels. Built also collaborated with WorkSafe to create a case study as part of their scaffold training course to demonstrate how to best erect a complex scaffold on a Melbourne CBD construction site.

An important safety innovation adopted in the project was the modularisation of the balconies that allowed these components to be pre-fabricated offsite, significantly reducing the number of crane lifts required by over a thousand, and drastically lowering the risks of working at height.

The multifaceted demolition, hazardous materials removal and extension of the structure at height presented project challenges for Built; however, the company managed safety for over 1800 workers, with over 783,256 man hours completed to date without a Lost Time Injury (LTI).

The William façade is considered highly complex with up to 12 separate faces being worked on at any one time. Peter Radovanovic, Built’s Construction Manager on the project explains that the complexity of this project, and the unique high risk scenarios it presented, provides a worthy platform to recognise the success of their safety systems and culture.

The William is due for completion in October.