Industrial · design and construction
Design and construct, for buildings that are really equipment enclosures.
The dominant procurement model in Australian industrial construction, and the one where the quality of your brief decides everything that follows.
The premise
Industrial design and construct lives or dies on the performance brief.
An industrial building is bought for what it can do, which means the brief can be written in numbers, and should be.
Commercial buildings are hard to brief in performance terms because much of what a client wants is qualitative. Industrial buildings are the opposite. Pallet positions, throughput, clear height, floor loading, vehicle movements and connected load are all countable, and every one of them fixes a building element.
Which is why a vague industrial brief is such an expensive document. Under design and construct the contractor is answerable to the brief rather than to a drawing set. If the brief says “good clearance”, the contractor has been handed the decision, and no amount of disappointment at handover changes what was agreed.
How we work
We would rather help you write the brief than price around a weak one.
We ask the operational questions first. Fleet, racking, throughput, commodity, vehicles, and we keep asking until the answers are numbers.
The rack layout is drawn against the building before the building is designed, so the column grid serves the racking rather than the racking working around the columns.
Design decisions are recorded against the brief item they satisfy, so at handover there is a line-by-line answer rather than an argument.
Commissioning and demonstration against the briefed performance, not against a general impression that the building looks finished.
The equipment interface
The suppliers who are not in your contract, but govern it.
Racking supplier
Ordinarily contracted directly by the owner or tenant. Their tolerance requirements govern the slab, their layout governs the column grid, and their rack height feeds the sprinkler design. They are not our subcontractor and their programme is not ours to compress, which is precisely why their dates go on our schedule and get reported.
Materials handling supplier
Sets clear height, aisle width and floor loading. A change of fleet after design is a change of building.
Automation and conveyor
Where automation is involved it usually arrives with its own structural, power and access requirements, and often its own installation contractor. The interface has to be drawn, not discussed.
Refrigeration
Cold storage brings insulated panel, floor heating to prevent frost heave, condensate, defrost and a substantial electrical load. It changes the building fundamentally rather than being an add-on.
Who coordinates
Someone has to, and it is rarely the best use of the client’s time. Under design and construct we take that role explicitly and put it in the contract rather than leaving it to goodwill.
Under design and construct, a brief that cannot be tested is a building you cannot reject.
Industrial facility · library image
Questions
We do not know our throughput yet. Can we still use design and construct?
Yes, but the brief should say what is known and what is provisional, and the provisional items should carry a decision date. Silence is what causes the problem, not uncertainty.
Can you novate our existing consultants?
Yes. On industrial projects it is less common than in commercial work, but where a specialist consultant has developed the operational design it is often the right structure.
Who owns the risk if the racking will not fit?
That depends entirely on whether the rack layout was in the brief. If it was, it is ours. If it was not, it is a conversation nobody enjoys, which is why we push to have it in.
Do you offer early contractor involvement?
Yes, and on industrial projects it is usually the better value. Involving a builder while the operational brief is still forming is worth more than involving one after it is fixed.
Bring us the operation. We will help you write the brief.
A brief written in numbers protects you whichever builder you appoint. We would rather you had one than not.
Submit a project briefRelated
Where to go next.
- Industrial new buildsA warehouse or facility built around the operation going into it.
- Industrial fitout and refurbishmentOffice, amenities and production areas inside a working industrial building.
- Industrial constructionWarehouses, distribution and production facilities, and the fitout inside them.
- Delivery modelsConstruct only, design and construct, managing contractor and early involvement.