The southern-most part of the development is located over the Northbridge rail tunnel and, as such, structural weight minimisation was of paramount importance. Structerre utilised hot-rolled frames and a metal ribbed permanent formwork floor system to reduce weight, and also designed all of the façade elements using thin gauge cold formed steel members and plates.
Finite Element Analysis was adopted for certain structural elements to maximise the building’s strength to weight ratio. Our miserly approach to structure weight enabled the building to be constructed to four stories high, even though load restrictions over the Northbridge Tunnel generally limit the number of stories to three.
