Sydney · New South Wales
Commercial and industrial construction, laboratory design and construct, fitout and refurbishment across metropolitan Sydney and New South Wales.
Intertek Sydney · perspective from the issued-for-construction set. Intertek Testing Australia is named with their consent.
The record
Intertek Testing Australia engaged JCGAU for the Sydney laboratory feasibility, then for the design and construct commission that followed it.
That progression is the part worth reading. A feasibility is a low-risk way for a client to find out whether a builder actually understands their problem. Intertek ran that test and then gave us the build, and they have consented to being named here.
The facility is a laboratory of more than 1,305 square metres in Sydney’s southern industrial area. It is a Class 8 and Class 5 building under a complying development pathway with an appointed principal certifier, which is the ordinary route for this kind of work in New South Wales.
Coverage
What we build here
Containment, pressure regime, benching, fume and cabinet selection, and the commissioning evidence a regulator will ask for.
CBD, North Sydney, Parramatta and suburban tenancies, with base building capacity confirmed in writing before design.
Southern and western Sydney industrial estates. Racking, docks, slabs and the services that decide whether a facility works.
Occupied buildings, staged works, and end-of-lease make-good scoped from the lease.
New South Wales context
New South Wales requires designs for certain building work to be declared by a registered practitioner, and the builder to declare that the work was built to those declared designs. It applies before construction, not at completion, and it rewards contractors who document properly.
Depending on the work and the zoning, the path is either a development application to council or a complying development certificate through a private certifier. The two have very different timelines and the choice is worth making early.
Not every consultant on a New South Wales project needs a scheme registration. The requirement attaches to particular services design work: fire detection and alarm systems and mechanically ducted smoke control, which sit with a registered electrical or mechanical engineer respectively; and fire hydrant, hose reel, sprinkler and drencher systems and any hydraulic-type automatic suppression system, which sit with a registered hydraulic building certifier. Fire systems design also runs through the Fire Protection Association Australia accreditation scheme at qualified or transitional level. Knowing which of your consultants actually needs a registration, and which does not, saves a fortnight of chasing paperwork nobody required.
The certifier appointment governs the inspection sequence and the occupation certificate at the end. We build the inspection points into the programme rather than discovering them.
New South Wales public sector procurement sets expectations for engaging Aboriginal businesses and for employment outcomes. We plan those from award with a named owner and monthly reporting.
Council conditions on working hours, noise and out-of-hours work vary considerably across Sydney councils. On a tower fitout the building’s own dock and lift rules add another layer.
The southern industrial estates around Botany and the western corridor each bring their own council, stormwater and distributor considerations.
Confirmed, not assumed
The registration requirements set out above were confirmed for our Sydney project with the registered building surveyor engaged on that job. We publish regulatory detail with its source attached, because a compliance claim without a source is an opinion. Requirements change, so confirm the current position for your project rather than relying on a web page.
Intertek ran the feasibility as a test of whether we understood the problem, then gave us the build.
Intertek Sydney laboratory · perspective from the issued-for-construction set
The first question
The most expensive thing to discover after a lease is executed is that the tenancy cannot power the business moving into it.
A laboratory, a test facility or a technical tenancy is electrically dense. Ovens, chillers, compressors, fume cabinets and instrumentation add to a maximum demand that has nothing in common with an office of the same floor area. On the Intertek Sydney laboratory this was the first question we asked and the first one we answered.
We establish the demand from the client’s own equipment schedule, then establish in writing what the tenancy and the wider complex can actually supply. Where the two do not meet there are two answers, and both carry a cost and a lead time: draw on spare capacity elsewhere in the complex, or apply to the network distributor for an augmentation. The client needs that number before they sign, not after the design is drawn.
People
A local team, local trades and a local supply chain, working under a compliance regime that rewards contractors who document properly.
The Intertek laboratory is being delivered by people who work in New South Wales and know the certifiers, the councils and the subcontract market here. The declared design regime in this state makes local knowledge worth more than it is in some others, because the documentation has to be right before construction starts rather than reconciled afterwards.
What does not change is who is answerable. The same director carries every project in every state, so the person who prices your job is the person who runs it.
People on the ground in New South Wales, on the project rather than reporting on it.
NSW trades and suppliers engaged for the work and held to their dates on our schedule.
The declared design regime here suits the way we work. We would rather build under it than around it.
A director on the project from tender through to the end of the defects period.
Coverage
Head office, and where the JCGAU builder licence BLD 344769 is held. The South Australian team runs work here.
An active team running Victorian projects, with Victorian trades and a Victorian supply chain.
An active team running New South Wales projects, currently delivering the Intertek Sydney laboratory.
The same director carries every project in every state, from tender through to the end of the defects period.
Questions
A New South Wales team on the ground and a director accountable for the whole of it. You will know both names before you sign anything.
A laboratory of more than 1,305 square metres for Intertek Testing Australia, taken from feasibility through to a design and construct commission. Intertek has consented to being named and can be approached as a referee.
Ask us for the current position and we will give you an accurate answer as at the day you ask, rather than publishing one that ages on a web page.
Yes. We work across regional New South Wales as well as metropolitan Sydney, with the same local supply chain and the same director on the project.
Usually the client, though we can coordinate it. Either way the inspection sequence goes on the programme from the start.
It is the clearest answer we can give to what JCGAU does, and Intertek has agreed to be named. A conversation about it will tell you more than a capability statement.
Talk to a construction directorRelated