a door to opportunity
comment Karl May Managing Director Turner
SUSTAINABLE DESIGN IS NOW A KEY TO SYDNEY DEVELOPMENTS Garage Doors are considered to a bold design statement for a lot of residential homes and properties, but in cyclone prone areas of Australia, they also play a major safety role in protecting residents from harsh tropical weather conditions. When new building codes for cyclonic proof garage doors were released in 2012, many garage door manufacturers tackled the exhaustive specifications by adding more heavy and stiff support beams to their doors. However, according to Mark Canning of Centurion Garage Doors, these doors are now considered a safety risk due to their excessive weight and the design elements of them must be revisited. “Traditional garage doors designed for cyclonic conditions often see over one-third
of a tonne hanging over residents’ heads,” he said. “This poses a major safety issue for residents and they can be an accident waiting to happen. After 40 years in business, we tasked our engineering team with the challenge to design a lighter weight door and the result is our new revolutionary C2V2 Cyclonic Garage Door. They are around a quarter of the weight of a traditional cyclonic door and only marginally heavier than a standard garage door,” added Mark. “The doors have been specifically designed to provide a new level of safety for residents in cyclone prone areas and the company is expecting a great response from the Bundaberg through to Cairns market. The C2V2 features a patent pending webbing and track retention system and delivers a new cutting-edge level of safety, strength and security.”
John Holland in joint venture to revamp old Royal Adelaide Hospital site Leading engineering contractor John Holland Group and Commercial & General will collaborate on a $1 billion-plus development to revamp the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site into a new sustainable living precinct. “The development will return land to the Adelaide Botanic Gardens and provide major economic benefits to South Australia creating up to 4,500 new jobs once operational and injecting $7.5 billion into the South Australian
economy over the first 12 years,” said John Holland, CEO Glenn Palin. John Holland Group will be a joint developer and investor as well as construct the project, which will start next year and take a decade to develop. It will include a 1,000-home multi-generational living precinct, a campus with curate incubator spaces for businesses, a cultural precinct and more than 5ha of open public space.
Richard Crookes wins Armidale hospital redevelopment A $60 million contract for Armidale’s Rural Referral Hospital redevelopment in northern NSW, has been won by Richard Crooke Construction’s New England office. The project, to be completed by late 2017, will
upgrade the facility to include a new emergency department, intensive care unit, a day surgery and new operating theatres. Richard Crookes has built hospitals at Parkes, Narrabri and three stages of Tamworth Hospital.
Leading developers, construction companies and architectural firms like Turner are fully committed to innovative and sustainable design outcomes. The understanding and consideration of active and passive environmentally responsive design principles should underpin all development, with key factors being the site’s location, orientation of buildings and technical service installations. It is important that these concerns are supported by an understanding of the commercial and social implications of design. The guiding principles of environmentally sustainable design are inextricably linked with the concern for the betterment of commerce and society, with the starting point for any project being a consideration of the quality of the environment for the occupant. The multi-award winning East Village at Victoria Park in Sydney is widely quoted as a mixed-use benchmark in Sydney in the delivery of a range of validated sustainability initiatives underpinned by knowledge, rigorous research and an understanding of global best practice and benchmarks. The building is designed to 5-Star Greenstar requirements in retail and commercial areas and 4-Star Green Star requirements in residential areas. A tri-generation plant with heat rejection absorption chiller provides common area power, residential hot water and hot and chilled water to retail and commercial tenants. Design of all developments should take a holistic approach to sustainability, considering all aspects of the design in terms of environmental impact, occupant experience, operation and maintenance. The buildings often feature sustainable features like highly efficient appliances, increased insulation, solar-boosted energy generation, smart meters, natural ventilation and reduced lighting loads. Turner often involve sustainability consultants early in the project to ensure all opportunites are explored and design aspects are considered and audited throughout the project. ANCR CONSTRUCTION NEWS
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