Office building in Melbourne (Melbourne Central development)

UNSW, Sydney – Australia

Office building in Melbourne (Melbourne Central development)

Building use

Office building

Country/Region

Australia

Overview

The Melbourne Central development is a combination of a large office building coupled with a very large shopping centre. The building uses the extremely efficient steel erection column approach.

Basic information (construction date, number of stories, gross floor area, adopted design code, engineer(s), Contractor(s), etc.)

Construction date: 1988
Number of stories: 54
Gross floor area: 12,000m2
Adopted design code: AS1250/AS2327.1 (Standards Australia, 1981a and 1980)
Engineer(s): Connell Wagner
Contractor(s): Kumagai Gumi

Issue and/or innovation

Use of 60 MPa concrete compressive strength of concrete

Specific solution/technical details

The Melbourne Central development is a combination of a large office building coupled with a very large shopping centre. The shopping centre also houses a 50 m tall historic lead shot tower which was completed in 1889 and forms part of the shot tower museum. The building uses the extremely efficient steel erection column approach, allowing the use of steel and composite beams and slabs to be accelerated and taking the concreting of the columns off the critical path. These steel erection columns were then encased in reinforced concrete and thereby giving them superior fire resistance to traditional steel section columns.