The New Way Forward

Retaining heritage integrity to repurpose the past

As heritage and refurbishment experts, Built preserved large volumes of heritage material, including floors and walls, while exposing as much of the buildings’ original features as possible.

Using the original timber warehouse floors – which have a unique timber truss detail on the underside – as permanent formwork for the new concrete reinforced slabs, Built was able to meet today’s fire standards, reduce materials and create a beautiful architectural feature.

The project also retains the original 12-metre-high, ground-floor Machine Hall – a vast and impressive space in its own right – which will become a world-class destination once it has been repurposed.

Solving complex problems to make century-old buildings fit for the future

With an agile and collaborative team, Built is adept at problem-solving across all areas – whether navigating limited access and space or gaining planning approval to build on top of two heritage listed buildings in a CBD.

Built had to excavate 12 metres below this site to provide structural support for the new 60-metre office space floating above, introducing concrete plunge piles with ground anchors welded to existing building columns to transfer the loads.

Built’s sustainability team took up the challenge to improve the sustainability outcomes of this 1909 spirit warehouse and 1930s electrical substation over conventional construction.

By retaining as much of the building’s heritage as they could, and reducing the need for new materials, structures and finishes, we were able to reduce the project’s upfront carbon footprint (A1-A5) by 24%.

During construction, the site used 100% green power onsite, diverted 90% of waste material from landfill and achieved a 97% recycling rate nearing completion – while at the same time, adopting a raft of health and wellbeing standards, to boost the health of all tenants.

Natural light has been optimised wherever possible and circadian rhythm lighting suspended over workstations. Terraced gardens, the use of a Moss product by Nordgröna as acoustic wall lining and a breathing wall of greenery all work to bring nature indoors.