Floth: Engineering the Future

A number of leading sustainable mixed use developments have something more in common than meets the eye.

To those in the know, the $500 million Hamilton Harbour, the $800 million 300 George Street and the $590 million Southpoint projects are a few of the high profile developments that have engaged Floth Sustainable Building Consultants for ESD, mechanical, electrical, fire, hydraulic and vertical transportation engineering consultancy services.

Leighton Properties and Devine Ltd joint venture Hamilton Harbour in Brisbane, is a vibrant mixed use development consisting of two commercial office towers and three residential towers above a connected four storey basement.

The development provides a number of state of the art facilities such as a fully-equipped gymnasium, entertaining areas, a lap pool and lagoon style swimming pool, as well as providing a pedestrian boulevard, with a vibrant mix of restaurants, cafes and boutique stores.

To ensure the development was environmentally sustainable, Floth developed an Integrated Water Management Plan for the entire site, which was imperative to the overall success of the project.

As a result, the greywater collected from the residential towers is treated and reused for toilet flushing and heat rejection within commercial component of the towers, and is also used for landscape irrigation of the entire site, saving an average of 20,000 litres of potable water per day.

To optimise passive design and cost effectiveness, Floth incorporated naturally ventilated corridors and external access points to the fire stairs.

The natural ventilation eliminated the need for the installation of an air-conditioning unit to regulate the temperature throughout these areas.

This design solution combined with the access to the fire stairs (requiring the occupants to travel via an external balcony) also removed the requirement for stair pressurisation and lobby relief systems, resulting in significant cost, spatial and energy savings.

Floth’s sustainable design expertise and experience guided the project team to successfully deliver the first two 4 Star Green Star Multi-Unit Residential Design v1 rated residential towers in Queensland and 5 star Green Star Office v3 Design and As Built ratings for the commercial tower.

Hamilton Harbour was also recently named the best mixed-use development in Australia at the Property Council of Australia’s Innovation & Excellence Awards.

Southpoint is a Transport Orientated Development by Anthony John Group at South Bank in Brisbane and will incorporate a retail podium including a specialty supermarket, 23,500 square metre A-Grade commercial office tower, 200 apartment residential tower and mixed use residential/hotel tower.

The mixed use tower will accommodate 234 apartments and a 147 room Emporium branded boutique hotel including roof top pool, gym, health spa, boutique, restaurants, bars and conference facilities.

The project components are targeting a variety of leading sustainability rating schemes, including Green Star, NABERS, EarthCheck and NatHERS.

Innovative design features for the mixed use tower include an owned and operated hotel, central air-cooled chilled water plant with heat reclaim technology to provide air-conditioning with free corridor humidity control and heating, and free domestic hot water pre-heat for the entire building.

This strategy provides a high quality energy and water efficient solution with added benefits for the apartment body corporate, who no longer have the responsibility for the operation and maintenance of major plant and equipment.

The office tower has been chosen by Flight Centre to be its new global headquarters, and Floth is also appointed to guide the integrated fit out design of mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, fire and ESD services.

Located on the old Brisbane Supreme and District Court city block site, 300 George Street is an iconic mixed use development including a 14,000 square metre mixed use podium, 300 room five star world class hotel tower, 420 apartment luxury residential tower and a 30 storey 45,000 square metre PCA A-Grade office tower.

A primary aim of the development is to create a world-class mixed-use precinct incorporating practical and cost effective sustainable design and construction for the subtropics.

To-date, significant work has been undertaken by Floth to firmly establish leading practice sustainable and engineering services design, within the proposed development.

This article has been prepared in partnership with Floth and TheUrbanDeveloper.com team.