CurveShield from Siniat helped the contractors achieve the curved walls conceptualised for the interiors of the new National Foods Limited office in Melbourne.
Located in Docklands, one of Melbourne’s most sought after business locations, the National Foods head office exemplifies modern office building design. Owned, developed and constructed by Lorenz Grollo’s Equiset, the striking $100 million building designed by F2 Architecture and completed in 2008 is situated in the Batman’s Hill precinct.
National Foods occupies levels three to eight of the 11-storey building, which is within walking distance of the CBD, transport hubs, extensive parklands, water frontages, sports facilities, restaurants and car parking.
The interior of the building has been carefully designed by HASSELL with open zones, flexible hubs and breakout areas to facilitate communication between staff and various groups. An impressive stairway connects the levels and provides access to a central terrace on the third level.
“The way staff interact at National Foods has a lot to do with the interior. Be it the large sculptural stair that cuts through the levels or the connection between hub areas, people are brought together from across the organisation in a transparent, open way,” said HASSELL principal Scott Walker.
Curved walls are a major feature of the interior as they create a sense of flow and openness through each floor of the building. Plaza Interiors Australasia was engaged as the contractor to install the curved ceilings over six floors, as well as the external cladding of the building’s veranda.
Having completed interiors for Crown Casino, MCG Northern Stand and Governor Philip Tower in Sydney, Plaza Interiors’ experience in major projects and special feature work enabled them to cope with the size and complex nature of the over $3 million project.
The interiors include ‘figure 8’ walls, sweeping curves and walls that consistently vary in thickness. With regular plasterboard measuring 13mm in thickness, bending was not an option; therefore, special purpose plasterboard and techniques were required to create the curved walls.
“We used Siniat’s CurveShield, which is six and a half millimetres thick. It has got flexibility in it so you can build a curved wall and build it up with different layers to obtain the architects’ requirements,” said Plaza Interiors director Graham Ryder.
The intricacies and non-standard features of the interior design took around 11 months to complete. “In the last half metre of every opening, wall thickness flares out to 150mm thick making it difficult to build and certainly tested our experience as plasterers,” said Ryder.
