Structural engineering services carefully executed to integrate a new development in the midst of heritage-listed buildings

David Malcolm Justice Centre

David Malcolm Justice Centre is an iconic 33-level office development on the corner of Barrack and Hay Streets in Perth, Western Australia. A constricted site layout and surrounding heritage-listed Town Hall and Old Treasury Buildings called for creative thinking from the design and construction teams.

Mirvac engaged Stantec to provide structural engineering services for the construction phase of a single level basement car park, reinforced concrete core, and an adjoining 5-level hotel annexe. Foundation remnants from a 1960’s mid-rise building previously occupying the site precluded the use of a conventional piled boundary retention system. Instead, our design team opted to use the original basement walls together with ground anchors and micro-fine injection to provide temporary boundary retention along the Old Town Hall. The top-down construction of a vehicular access tunnel also occurred under the state buildings to link the new basement car park to the existing law chamber car park.

Careful sequencing of the temporary works, jacked propping and micro-fine injection enabled the demolition of heritage building foundations and their replacement with a new concrete foundation raft.