ENGINEERING IN MOTION

ISSUE DEC 2018/ JAN 2019

IN HER ROLE AS PRINCIPAL AND SENIOR STRUCTURAL ENGINEER AT NSW BASED NORTHROP CONSULTING ENGINEERS, STRUCTURAL COLLEGE BOARD CHAIR KARLIE COLLIS ASSESSES LEARNINGS FROM A RECENTLY COMPLETED OFFSITE PROJECT.

A new scheme, The Trinity Point Marina Development, south of Newcastle (NSW), includes a 5 star hotel, restaurant, function centre, 180 berth marina, and new multi storey residential buildings including resort pools and spas.
Northrop Consulting Engineers was engaged on the development to provide structural, mechanical, hydraulic, electrical and energy efficiency design services and engaged specialists for the resort pools and fire protection.

Significantly, from the offsite and prefabrication perspective, we also completed a display suite for the Trinity Point development that is designed to be moved around on site. The project is a win for sustainability as, while it was initially conceived for display purposes, the structure is designed to be repurposed. In fact at the time of writing, it has already been moved and is currently being repurposed into a restaurant.

“Significantly, from the offsite and prefabrication perspective, we also completed a display suite for the Trinity Point development that is designed to be moved around on site. The project is a win for sustainability as, while it was initially conceived for display purposes, the structure is designed to be repurposed. In fact at the time of writing, it has already been moved and is currently being repurposed into a restaurant.”

Karlie Collis, Principal | Senior Structural Engineer – Northrop Consulting Engineers, and Structural College Board Chair.

The structural implications of this small but significant project were noteworthy in terms of allowing for experimentation and a degree or inventiveness. Firstly, there was no requirement to design for general transport restrictions, given there was no need to transport the structure on public roads. As a result it was much easier to design without the dimension limitations associated with trucking permits, allowing for larger modules and greater overhangs.

Trucks were still deployed to move the three modules for this project around the site, meaning structural design began with discussions with local trucking companies to determine the truck dimensions and thereby ascertain temporary support conditions for structural design.

Advantages of the project lay in a degree of freedom of design and engineering, as well as the “constraint” of needing consider, from structural engineering perspective, the “mobile” nature of the project, which demanded that a number of potential orientations and site conditions such as varying wind loads, be factored in.

In such projects, one of the most important key learnings is that documentation needs to be very clear on the site’s limitations or constraints.■

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