Commercial · new builds
New commercial buildings, from a bare site.
Ground-up commercial construction across South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. Offices, education and community facilities, clinics and mixed-use buildings.
The premise
On a new build, the site is rarely what sets the date.
Approvals, service connections and long-lead elements are all decided off-site, by people who do not work for you, on timelines you cannot compress.
A new building is the one project type where the construction programme is the shorter half of the story. Between a decision to build and a slab pour sits a sequence of consents, referrals, utility applications and procurement commitments, and each of them has a queue.
So the first thing we do on a new build is not price the building. It is map what has to be lodged, ordered or applied for, and when. That map is the programme. Everything else follows it.
Before the site
What we do in the first six weeks.
Geotechnical investigation, survey, contamination history, existing services located rather than assumed. Everything under the ground that is discovered later is a variation.
The referral bodies for this site and this use, identified and approached early. A referral nobody knew about is the single most common cause of a programme reset.
Load and demand estimated well enough to lodge connection applications, because the distributor’s clock does not start until the application does.
Which elements are fabricated to order and therefore have to be designed first. Façade, lifts, switchboards, generation and specialist plant, in that order of pain.
The programme
Five streams, and the one that finishes last.
The building is not usually the thing that decides the completion date.
Before the site
What we do in the first six weeks.
The ground
Geotechnical investigation, survey, contamination history and existing services located rather than assumed.
The referrals
Every referral body for this site and this use identified before the programme is written, not after.
The connections
Load estimated well enough to lodge, because the distributor clock starts at the application rather than at the decision.
The long leads
Which elements are fabricated to order, and therefore have to be designed first.
Structure and envelope
The two decisions that shape everything after them.
Structural system
Steel frame, in-situ concrete or precast, each with a different balance of programme, weather exposure, crane requirement and site footprint. On a constrained urban site the choice is often made by the crane and the truck access, not by the engineer.
Façade
The longest-lead element on most commercial buildings, and the one most often still being resolved when it needs to be ordered. It also carries the thermal performance the building is assessed on and, since the cladding reforms, a materials compliance trail that has to be documented rather than assumed.
Vertical transport
Lifts are ordered against a shaft that has to be built accurately. The lift supplier’s programme is not negotiable in the way a trade programme is.
Services strategy
Whether plant sits on the roof, in a basement or in a plant room changes the structure, the acoustics, the façade and the useable floor area. It is a concept decision that is frequently deferred to detail design, where it becomes expensive.
Weather
Every programme we issue identifies when the building becomes weathertight, because that date governs when every internal trade can start. A programme that does not show it is not a programme.
A referral nobody identified is not a delay. It is a restart.
Institutional new build · library image
Sustainability
Written into the contract, or it does not happen.
Energy performance is now a compliance requirement rather than an aspiration, and where a client is pursuing a rating, the evidence has to be collected during construction, not assembled afterwards from whatever records happen to exist.
We treat rating evidence the way we treat any other deliverable: a named person, a due date and a place it is filed. Commissioning records, product data, waste tracking and air-tightness results are collected as the work happens. Retrospective evidence is either unavailable or expensive, and usually both.
Working with us
What makes the first conversation useful.
- The site, and whether you own itTitle, survey, easements and any existing approval. Conditional purchases change the sequence completely.
- What the building is forUse class drives the code path, the fire strategy and the referrals. It is the single most informative thing you can tell us.
- Who is designing it, if anyone yetA design already in progress and a blank page are different starting points, and neither is a problem.
- The date that actually mattersA lease expiry, a funding milestone, an academic year, a season. Programmes built backwards from a real date behave differently from programmes built forwards from a start.
- The budget, honestlyIncluding whether it is a board-approved figure or an aspiration. We would rather tell you early that the brief and the budget do not meet.
Questions
Can you help before we own the site?
Yes, and it is often the most valuable point to be involved. Feasibility, buildability and an order-of-cost view before a purchase decision is cheaper than discovering the constraint after.
Do you work with our architect, or do you bring your own?
Either. On a traditional contract we build to your consultant team’s documents. Under design and construct we can bring a team or take yours across by novation.
How early do you need the design finished?
Not finished. Resolved in the right order. The elements that get fabricated need to be designed first, and finishes can be settled much later than most people assume.
What is the most common cause of a blown programme on a new build?
A service connection or an authority referral that was not identified at the start. Both are visible in week one to anyone who goes looking.
Send us the site and the use.
With those two things we can tell you what the approval path looks like, what has a queue in front of it, and where the programme risk actually sits.
Submit a project briefRelated
Where to go next.
- Design and constructOne contract carrying both the design and the price.
- Fitout and refurbishmentWorking inside an existing building, including one that has to keep operating.
- End of lease defit and make goodScoping, pricing and executing the obligation before the lease date decides it for you.
- Commercial constructionOffices, retail, hospitality and institutional work, from fitout to new build.
- Delivery modelsConstruct only, design and construct, managing contractor and early involvement.