The difficulties stemmed from the project’s location immediately adjacent to several key civil infrastructure items, including the main north south Wynyard / Milsons Point rail tunnel, which had to remain safely operational during any development.

The architectural design solution called for the utilization of the area immediately under the Reynell building for a substation and additional car parking spaces.

Meinhardt were challenged with the requirement to temporarily support the Reynell building to allow safe excavation and construction of the new building. As the excavation was a traditional removal of rock from vertical progress, this led to additional complications and meant all the underpinning structure had to be installed from the surface level prior to the commencement of the excavation.

By instigating an underpinning method utilizing pre-bored piles and beams the client’s objectives of being able to develop in this difficult challenging site were achieved and the excavation was completed skilfully and successfully by the contractor with no damage to any of the key civil assets, on time and under budget.