Located on Brisbane’s Western Corridor, SW1 will contain an innovative offering of residential apartments, townhouses, premium retail and commercial spaces. To ensure the SW1 1.8 hectare site reached its full potential this development incorporated the work of five architectural firms. Cox Rayner was chosen as the leading architect to work alongside Haysom Architects, John Mainwaring & Associates, AJC and M3architecture.

Robert Bird Group achieved the client’s brief for open office spaces with minimum internal and external column numbers by the use of a floor system comprised of posttensioned concrete band beams and one way slabs. This system also minimised the floor to floor height which saved our client money for vertical structural elements as well as the external façade.

Because the basement area was larger than necessary for the required number of car parking spaces, Robert Bird Group engineers recommended and implemented a two tier external wall system for the two level basement.

Project Features

• From Ground level to Basement 1 a conventional cantilevering steel sheet pile shoring system and reinforced concrete retaining wall was used around the perimeter of the basement.
• From Basement 1 to Basement 2 an earth berm and battered bank one column bay wide was used. This allowed deletion of the shoring and retaining wall from Basement 1 to Basement 2 thus saving the client the cost of these items and also resulted in a significant reduction in construction time allowing earlier occupation of the buildings.