Catholic Education SA, Stella Maris Parish School Upgrade

Developing the detailed design

Immediately after award, Sarah’s team commenced working closely with the project’s architect to develop a constructible detailed design.

Leveraging the business’s in-house design and building information modelling (BIM) expertise, Sarah led a rigorous program of communication to resolve design decisions, significantly accelerating the commencement of construction.

Maintaining the architectural vision

The new building is categorised by its spaciousness and openness, facilitated by the minimisation of internal columns or piers.

This major design feature uses longer span fully welded structural steel beams, only manufactured overseas, and with a long-lead time impacting the program by six weeks.

Sarah’s team significantly accelerated works during the later stages of the build, expertly coordinating trades, and working seven-day weeks with careful consideration to safety and impacts to the neighbouring church and residents, to reduce impacts to the overall program.

A collaborative approach to complex challenges.

In the later stages of the building delivery, it was discovered that the building’s aluminium fin façade needed to be redesigned for compliance with energy ratings.

With a redesign and manufacturing timeframe of 20 weeks for the custom-made elements, Sarah led a series of workshops with the aluminium subcontractor, client, architect and energy consultant to determine the most time-efficient approach.

By changing the build sequence, and maintaining open lines of communication, the team achieved a high-quality outcome without significant impacts to the overall program.

Deconstruction and delivery in an operational school  

While deconstruction of the existing buildings was completed over Christmas school holidays, construction occurred while the school community (and the church located on the same site) remained fully operational.Sarah’s team quickly established strong relationships with school staff and church personnel, communicating regularly and well in advance of works that may impact students or staff.

With safety as the team’s top priority, all works were completely segregated, secured, and continually monitored, and an overhead gantry installed to guide pedestrians around the site boundary.

Recycling and repurposing

While the deconstructed building was relatively new, it no longer met the growing requirements of the school.With the building’s components in good condition, Sarah negotiated for more than 50 tonnes of structural steel and 20 tonnes of timber to be salvaged by the demolition contractor, reducing cost for the client, and improving the project’s sustainability outcomes.
Sarah reused 14m2 pavers to floor an existing shed and other areas around site, and repurposed timber as storage units in the laydown area.

Complex logistic challenges

With occupied spaces all around, the only access being a narrow one-way street, and a tightly constrained construction footprint, the site presented significant logistical challenges for Sarah’s team.

Sarah negotiated with the local council to lease and secure a laydown area in the reserve directly across the road and commissioned a traffic survey to design safe crossing strategies.

Deliveries were restricted to outside of pick-up/drop-off times using vehicles suitable for the narrow residential streets.

To ensure public safety during the structural steel deliveries, Sarah gained council approval for temporary, short-term road closures, providing advance community notice.

Despite the numerous constraints, the project was delivered without complaint from the local community.

Managing Contractor (MC) expertise

While Sarah has successfully delivered several Catholic Education projects, and many other MC projects, the Stella Maris upgrade is the first MC contract between Sarah and CESA.

Sarah’s highly collaborative approach is well suited to this model; the ideal choice to advance the concept design and manage constructability within the nominated timeframes.

Sarah’s engagement was also characterised by robust and transparent financial management and reporting, which allowed all parties to make timely decisions and add scope elements.

Value Management

Sarah’s team worked closely with the architect to identify more than $200,000 of value management items including light fittings, paving materials, and wall fixtures.

After detailed design, with careful regard to the program, and leveraging its extensive network of quality suppliers/subcontractors, Sarah coordinated the retendering of some packages to save an additional $50,000.