Quay Quarter Tower, Sydney NSW
2022 World Building of the Year. A 50-storey commercial office development located in the heart of Sydney, comprises of a series of shifting glass volumes stacked upon each other. This technology enabled building, with its landscaped gardens and flexible work areas, is a diverse and environmentally considered space.
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The situation
Choosing to recycle instead of demolish the building at 50 Bridge Street, the developers have taken the unique approach of retaining over 60% of the existing structure. Expansion and improvements will create a state-of-the-art tower that will be, in every sense of the word, a village.
Major requirements associated with this project were to enable safe and easy rope access for maintenance and window cleaning to the facades and, additionally, provision of a glass replacement system.
Solution
With aesthetics at the forefront of this innovative building design, rigid rail was identified as the perfect choice when selecting a system to provide safe access to both the facades and the internal stair voids. The unobtrusive design of Kattsafe's rigid rail provided the low visual impact that was in keeping with Quay Quarter Tower's clean architecture.
To enable light replacement and general maintenance to be undertaken the rigid rail was suspended in the internal stair voids. The system allows operators to maneouvre easily and quickly around the area without the requirement for EWPs or other types of equipment which can cause major workplace disruption.
Rigid rails were installed on the building facade enabling rope access for window cleaning and maintenance. Additional advantages of the system were the slimline appearance and the rigid rail's ability to be installed into the soffit, making it almost invisible to the eye.
Within the brief, there was a need to supply a system that could be used for the replacement of glass panels.
Various means can be used when replacing windows on tall buildings. Small windows are sometimes replaced from inside the building, the panels being transported to the desired location using lifts / elevators.
However, in most cases due to the large size of windows in commercial buildings they are lifted into place using cranes. Cranes work well in the construction phase, but once the building is completed and these have been removed, smaller ground based cranes become necessary. Using these is not always practicable, as they have a large footprint making them difficult to place, especially in busy CBD locations. Furthermore, often they do not have a long enough reach. Another alternative is mobile elevated work platforms but again these can only be used on smaller buildings.
More popular, is the use of BMUs (Building Maintenance Units). Whilst these are an effective way of hauling replacement glass up the building, these machines are extremely costly to install, require regular expensive servicing, are difficult or sometimes impossible to retrofit and can take up a large amount of roof space.
Although the technical team knew that Kattsafe rigid rail would be a suitable product to utilise for glass replacement, some additional design aspects were required before the system could be manufactured and installed.
In the system application for Quay Quarter Tower, two rigid rails were supplied - one for rope access personnel and one for the hoisting of the glass panels. This separation was necessary to have as an important safeguard in the event of system failure or an emergency/rescue situation.
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Watch Bleimon Ineu from RIGCOM use the rigid rail to perform some facade maintenance.
Kattsafe was proud to be part of this landmark construction and look forward to providing our products on similar such environmentally progressive projects.
For more information on facade access solutions read: Providing safe access for facade maintenance.
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