The Concrete Institute Annual Dinner last week saw Airey Taylor Consulting win the prestigious award for excellence in the engineering category for their work on the Cockburn Gateway Shopping Centre Stage 3.
The award was in recognition of the top down design method developed by Airey Taylor that was used on the Cockburn Gateway project to significantly reduce capital costs and allow for earlier tenant occupancy.
The project, which has recently been completed, used the top down method to enable the superstructure to be completed prior to the excavation of the basement. The design of special steel-cased pile shafts, eliminated the need for footings and the use of short piles with Micro-Fine cement grout, constructed a unique reinforced cemented-soil block retaining system that eliminated formwork for the extensive basement wall.
The first floor was then able to achieve large column free space due to the utilisation of post tensioned reinforced concrete beams that eliminated over 80% of formwork. The result was principal tenant occupancy 8 months earlier than predicted and large capital cost savings.
The Concrete Institute awards for excellence were created to recognise the many significant contributions to the development of concrete technology and practice in Australia and to foster improvements in the standard of concrete construction.
This award is the first to be received by Airey Taylor Consulting on the Cockburn Gateway Shopping centre and represents a significant contribution to the development of concrete technology and practice in Australia.
