The new Sydney International Convention Exhibition Entertainment Precinct involved the development of a new convention centre, exhibition halls and 8,000 seat theatre. The significant scale of the buildings resulted in many unique fire engineering challenges.

Working with the design team even before drawings were prepared allowed a holistic and performance based approach to be taken to all of the fire safety systems proposed. This included identifying and choosing the best options to achieve the optimum balance of flexibility, efficiency and practicality.

How we did it differently

• While the focus was on getting the right building design, there were more than 100 fire engineering solutions developed across the building.
• We worked closely with the design team, contractor, project manager, operator and approval authorities to progress the project through the design stages and into construction.
• The project structured as a PPP allowed the operator and maintainer to be involved from inception. This provides a different perspective from the more traditional design and build contracts where operating costs are not always given the merit they deserve.

As the Fire Engineering Reports were produced we continued to remain involved during the construction process reviewing, responding to and amending information as needed. This has resulted in further efficiencies realised with the buildability knowledge of the construction teams fully utilised.