Out & About - PIF Charity Regatta, Sydney

Our National Strategic Partnerships Director, Godfrey Frederick was delighted when Sydney’s weather cooperated on Friday, allowing the Property Industry Foundation (PIF) Charity Regatta to proceed.

Sailing onboard the Currawong, the dedicated PIF supporters boat for the day, it’s another way BSE engages with our charity partners and support the PIF House Program, to build homes for homeless youth!

“What a great event it was and even though we finished near the back of the field, I reckon we had the most fun on the boat and of course its all for a very worthy cause”

— Godfrey Frederick

You too can be involved with PIF’s important work, more details on their website: https://pif.com.au/get-involved/donation/

WiredScore Accreditation

Congratulations to our own Johno Smithers, for his successful qualification as a WiredScore Accredited Professional.

With over 6 million people working in over 60 million square meters of certified space (including the Empire State Building, The Shard and International Towers Barangaroo), this is the global standard for technology in our built world. Digital connectivity is essential to our modern reality, with the goal of smarter, connected buildings providing opportunities for collaborative, innovative and dynamic work. Recent experiences have taught us all the value of adaptability and convenience with work; WiredScore assesses, certifies, and improves digital connectivity and smart technology in buildings and offices on a global scale.

A significant value-add for owners and landlords: Johno can work with you across buildings’ lifecycle to understand, benchmark, improve, promote and monitor the digital connectivity in your buildings and developments. Assets are future-proofed, provide higher rental return for premium facilities and with an improved offering to tenants, attraction and retention are improved.

Professionals like Johno, work with WiredScore’s key principles of resilience, future readiness, mobile coverage, providers, and user experience – providing value-add to BSE’s project partners and users of the buildings, spaces and rooms our team design.

Reach out to Johno to discuss the benefits of a WiredScore accreditation can deliver to your building or workplace.

Read more: https://wiredscore.com/

#TBT Throwback to Domain

Throwing back to 2017 and one of the year’s most well covered commercial projects was Siren Design’s vision for Domain Group in Pyrmont. Partnering with Siren Design and builder Shape Group, BSE’s team delivered mechanical services, power, data, speciality lighting, fire protection and hydraulic services to deliver a fresh and functional design, consisting of offices, meeting rooms and extensive break out spaces.

The brief was to use open ceilings throughout the building and services would need to ‘disappear’. Siren Design’s intent was critical for the success of this fitout, to provide tenants with fresh and functional offices, reception, meeting and breakout areas. This 1890’s building, Wool Store, has been revived with new significance and bursting with life with high quality finishes while maintaining respect towards the heritage of the building.

BSE was focused on adaptive reuse and delivering a sustainable design for the ground floor, level 1 and level 5. The 8,600m2 space was a challenging fitout with open ceilings where the services needed to disappear. Services were coordinated with all architectural intent and existing structure.

While the use of this space may have changed since 2017, we’ll always love what was created!

International Women's Day

To celebrate, acknowledge, and learn from International Women’s Day 2021, we asked the Women of BSE, what does the day mean to them?

“To me, IWD is an incredible opportunity to spread awareness about the many barriers women face on a day-to-day basis and to create progressive change to smash the glass ceiling. IWT is a gentle reminder to look on, in awe, at the brilliant, intelligent and enormously capable women that add unparalleled value to my life and be appreciative of how far we’ve come in our strivings for a better balance. However, it is also an opportunity to truly understand how much further we need to progress to create a world that I would be happy for not just my (future) daughters, but for any girls to grow and flourish in. IWT to me, in a word: respect, progression, balance.”

— Amelia Fraser, National Strategic Partnerships Coordinator

“It is the one day in the year where we proudly and loudly champion and applaud the women we live with and work with while also inspiring others to join us.”

— Siti Mustaffa, Mechanical Engineer

“The opportunity of highlighting and showing women’s achievement and value in engineering and construction industries. ”

— Maggie Xia, Senior Mechanical Engineer

“It’s a day to acknowledge women that promote our rights for equality everyday, determined to give all women a voice to be reckoned with, whether it be women in the highest of career positions to those volunteering their time to improve another’s life. We stand together in strength and stand proud.”

— Nicki Fraser, Director, National Finance Manager

“A day to acknowledge the contribution of women and a focus (through the theme) for further improvement. It’s a day I find challenging, to celebrate women, while feeling the frustration of there being so far to go to provide unbiased and equal opportunities for women and men to break stereotypes of what their career (even lives) must look like. Hopeful of a inclusive supportive workplaces for everyone.”

— Jessica Chesser, National Operations Manager

We took the opportunity and followed up by asking for their go-to approach to #choosetochallenge and call out gender bias and inequality ?

• Always act with dignity and tenacity, if others devalue us we should never lower our standards to suit theirs

• Have a reasonable discussion with someone who has gender bias and argue logically why women are able to achieve the same things as men

• Accepting that not everyone is going to like you for calling out inequality, and needing to be okay with that; once you've overcome that hurdle, #choosingtochallenge inequality is a lot more seamless

• Depends on the audience/ context... often gently asking someone to explain why XYZ is appropriate/ funny often prompts them to reflect.

• A simple, strong 'No' can be helpful as an indicator that a discussion point is final and not a negotiation point

• A honest, private chat is sometimes useful

• I prefer to let my work do the talking - I strive to communicate in a professional manner with clients and colleagues and let my engineering design prove my skills and knowledge

You can read more about this years #choosetochallenge theme, and the important work here: https://www.internationalwomensday.com/.

Cheerful City Walk

City Walk is one of Canberra’s most important public places. Their design and use have changed over the decades to meet the needs of a growing and evolving City. City Walk is a wide, 400-metre-long street distinguished by the elegant, high former entry to the Monaro Mall, which fronts onto it.

The ACT Government committed to upgrade and revitalised City Walk, making it a more attractive, accessible, and welcoming space for people to use, relax and connect.

 Given the significance of this location, our Canberra Team, led by Brendon Newham, were understandably excited to partner with City Renewal Authority (CRA) and Rork Projects to deliver the electrical services engineering and design, including lighting design across all stages of the project. BSE’s design was produced working closely with the project team, including construction to team to ensure streamlined install. The inclusion of DMX colour change LED light fittings was an intriguing innovation allowing users of the space to program the lighting and the ambiance to suit different seasons and activity.

 With outstanding results, this public space redevelopment provides Canberrans and visitors with a true designation.

Photo credit: ACT Government

References:

https://www.act.gov.au/cityrenewal/places/city-centre/garema-place-city-walk-petrie-plaza-and-ainslie-place

https://www.act.gov.au/cityrenewal/blog/city-renews/city-walk-a-new-green-heart-for-our-city-centre

https://www.act.gov.au/our-canberra/latest-news/2020/november/city-walk-transformed-into-a-green-oasis

Welcome Antonino Cascio!

BSE is delighted to expand our management team to include Antonino Cascio, as National ICT Manager.

 Encapsulating our backend ICT strategy into a national solution, provides BSE with greater opportunity to focus on user friendly, resilient, and flexible technology solutions, which operate accurately with our software and application platforms.

 With diverse experience in cloud computing and understanding the challenging requirements of engineering technology, Antonino is leveraging our existing cloud environment with hardware and software solutions to streamline our team member’s technology use.

 Jessica Chesser, our National Operations Manager, said of the appointment:

“I am thrilled to welcome Antonino to TeamBSE, he brings a depth of understanding and a solution focused approach which will enhance the technology and systems experience for our team members. Excited to see where this growth will take us!”

Antonino’s full profile here.

Promotion News!

We are delighted to announce the promotion of John Smithers as our QLD Buildings & Infrastructure Manager. Since joining BSE, John has already made a positive impact on our team environment and brought a depth of project delivery knowledge to compliment our team.

You can view his full profile here: https://www.bse.com.au/john-smithers

Vast volume for Victorian State Government

A hugely successful project, shortlisted as part of the IDEA2020 Awards, it’s time we had a look in greater detail at this fitout completed for a Victorian State Government.

This workplace designed by PTID, and managed by JLL provides the Victorian State Government with over 3000sqm of people-focused areas and bright spaces. BSE’s team, delivered electrical, mechanical hydraulic, fire protection, communication and data, ICT and AV services across all stages of the project to provide the Government with an outstanding facility. Our teams incorporated specific WELL requirements into the final design.

Our team worked with JLL and PTID to provide a sustainable gold star rated WELLS certified facility complete with an integrated stairwell. Higher filtrated mechanical units formed part of the final solution to provide cleaner recycled air throughout the space maximising non-contaminants. High class video conferencing facilities was provided to meeting rooms allowing flexibility within the workspace.

Photos by Elizabeth Grosmann

#TBT Throwback Thursday to Rothschild

A new professional space for Rothchild in the iconic Aurora Place building, required a specific approach to design to incorporate the strong vision and clear user specifications.

Office spaces don’t have to be ordinary to be professional, here the ceiling lines and indirect lighting adds depth and atmosphere to an otherwise dark space. Services in the ceiling are still accessible for maintenance with the use of carefully blended panels.

Aurora Place is a beautifully and irregularly designed building, with curved walls. Bates Smart embraced this shape in their design, to create welcoming curved passageways leading to multiple spaces and hinting at the spectacular views of the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge. The hallway is also designed as a pseudo gallery, with beautiful work installed and highlighted with speciality lighting and humidity-controlled air conditioning. These photos, taken before art installation demonstrate the professional aesthetic combined with simple beauty of curved lines, embracing the base building structure.

The space provided to Rothchild includes 2000sqm of premium quality, professional services reception space, open plan work areas, meeting rooms, boardroom, breakout spaces and commercial kitchen.

BSE partnered with architect Bates Smart and builder SHAPE to bring Rothchild’s vision for their refreshed space into reality, with the brief requiring exceptional and premium finishes and spaces with traditional aesthetics. Our team delivered functional brief and initial design documentation, detailed services design for mechanical, electrical, data, lighting, IT integration, fire, hydraulic, security, integration of AV requirements, commercial kitchen loading verifications and coordination’s, integration of systems to BMS and coordination with base building engineers.

2020 Project Highlights

As we embark on our 2021 journey, we asked some of our teams to recall their 2020 projects. Those that they were most excited to deliver and what in-progress projects inspire them. Some of our prominent projects are listed below:

St Mary Mackillop Administration Building in Canberra - completed

Government department office fitout - completed and award shortlisted in Melbourne

Woolworths building condition reports, across NSW & QLD - ongoing

Bank Street Marina in Sydney - completed

Mona Vale Primary School – ongoing

Garema Place & City Walk public realm in Canberra – completed

Chatswood Education Precinct – competed

Boandik (SA) Aged Care, Mt Gambier – ongoing

RAAF Edinburgh building refurbishment works – ongoing

Canberra Data Centre in Hume, ACT - completed

Ernst & Young Melbourne office fitout – ongoing

The Star, Sovereign Resort, Sydney - completed

SCG Infrastructure upgrades and new SFS stadium – ongoing

Bunnings sustainability upgrade program - ongoing

Goulburn Hospital Redevelopment Peer Review – ongoing

Midtown Centre commercial development in Brisbane – ongoing

Martha Cove mixed use development in Victoria – ongoing

WeWork Eagle Street co-working space in Brisbane – completed

Fairmont Resort, Port Douglas in Queensland – ongoing

Garema Place & City Walk public realm, Canberra

Chatswood Education Precinct

Boandik (SA) Aged Care, Mt Gambier

The Star, Sydney

SCG Infrastructure upgrades and new SFS stadium

Goulburn Hospital Redevelopment Peer Review

Midtown Centre, Brisbane

Martha Cove mixed use development, Victoria

WeWork, Eagle Street, Brisbane

Fairmont Resort, Port Douglas

 Team BSE is excitedly expecting another busy year in 2021 with work planned in education, commercial, hospitality, infrastructure and other sectors.  

End of year message from Andrew Fraser, CEO

As we farewell a year unlike any other, our team have reflected on 2020, and the 26th year of BSE!

While we don’t know exactly what 2021 has instore, our team’s passion for projects, adaptability and courage in moving forward will make it an adventure worth having.

Personal note from CEO, Andrew Fraser:

“Never has the support of our team members, our clients and our project partners been as essential to BSE as they have been this year. I wrote of 2019 being a year of growth and change and it turns out that 2020 has been a year of endurance and conviction.

Our incredible teams have continued to deliver outstanding project results whilst adapting to the new norms. Most importantly we have all still been able to squeeze in some fun!

BSE’s primary areas of growth in 2020 have been:
• the opening of our new Adelaide multi-discipline office
• The formation of a dedicated national ICT team to expand and enhance our existing ICT service offerings, and
• The formation of our new national Acoustics team

It has been a challenging year for all of us and I am incredibly proud of how our teams, leaders and Directors have adapted, innovated and adjusted to keep BSE steady and stable which has enabled us to meet all of our commitments.

I wish our clients and project partners a happy Christmas and a safe and hopeful New Year!
”

— Andrew Fraser

#TBT Throwback Thursday to Suez

A global leader in water and waste, Suez embraced their own vision for an energic and contemporary space for their growing team while effectively communicating the Suez brand identity. The project team delivered this vision through incorporating natural elements, focusing on inclusivity and comfort to provide harmony within the new space. With the on-brand emphasis being eco-friendly allowed the innovative and well-planned use of cost-effective material to minimise waste during installation and construction; Suez now have a connected, modern space aligning their workplace to their operational vision.

 This space spread over two-floors commercial office (approximately 4,000m2), including collaborative workspaces, breakout areas and private meeting rooms to the client’s specific and innovative ‘wish-list’. With an environmental and sustainable focus on operational efficiency BSE provided electrical, hydraulic, fire and mechanical services engineering from concept design through to construction services and inspections, partnering with Engine Room VM, RFA Architects & Schiavello Construction to deliver this project on time and on budget.

Image attribution: EngineRoom + Schiavello 

Out & About

Yesterday evening, BSE along with project partners INDESCO and Willowtree Planning welcomed guests at a joint event in North Sydney.

As our NSW teams are all based in North Sydney and partner together on projects delivery, we took the opportunity to bring our teams and clients together for some end of year cheer.

A great way to end a challenging year with our colleagues, project partners and good friends!
Our team sends special thanks to Salina Lama of Indesco for the organisation of the event.

#TBT - Throwback to Henry Schein Halas

Location: 185 – 191 O’Riordan St, Mascot

This partnership with NettletonTribe and INTREC revolved around the design and fitout of new office space for Henry Schein Halas, a leading American Company supplying dental and veterinary equipment and supplies. Henry Schein Halas detailed their requirements for the space as a progressive 4.5 Green Star/ NABERS use of an existing building in Mascot. Requiring elements of ABW workplace strategies, the area is a generous 2000m2 of open plan desks, offices, 60pax conference room, 16pax board and multiple meeting rooms, team breakout areas, with display and demonstration areas available for visitors and public. The project had a total budget over $3M.

BSE delivered our full suite of building services scope across concept design, detailed and tender documentation, construction documentation, services during construction and defects liability stages to ensure NettletonTribe’s vision for the Henry Schein Halas space was successful. Our design and engineering team utilised our thorough scope and design process, comprehensive coordination tools to ensure the space met the design intent and provided Henry Schein Halas with purposeful and effective space. Services delivered were mechanical with compressed air and suction, electrical – power and data, fire protection, hydraulic, GreenStar and NABERS, with value added coordination with AV specialists.  

Images courtesy of NettletonTribe

International Men's Day

To mark International Men’s Day this year we asked our team to reflect on 2020’s theme of “better health for men and boys”:

Andrew Fraser

As a late baby boomer, I grew up in a period when boys were meant to ‘act like men’ and not show any emotion. I then started my professional career as a cadet engineer in the building industry, a profession and an industry that have always been short on emotional appreciation and understanding. My long-suffering wife has spent the last 30 years ‘coaching’ me in the finer skills of emotional intelligence. This has strongly assisted me to mould the BSE attitudes and culture such that they are always appreciative, considerate and respectful of the mental health and wellbeing of all our team members.

Godfrey Frederick

International Men’s Day has its deserved place in our societies. The importance of improving gender relations, promoting gender equality, and highlighting positive male role models is so important. My favourite quote is from a very inspirational person:

“Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again” - Nelson Mandela

Tim O’Regan

The quote I live by (before I knew it was a quote by someone), it is a constant reminder to approach challenges with an effective way and focus on positive mental health:

“If there is no solution to the problem then don't waste time worrying about it. If there is a solution to the problem then don't waste time worrying about it.”

― The Dalai Lama

BSE’s commitment is to provide a positive, inclusive and passionate workforce, where our team members can develop and grow knowledge and be recognised in contribution to great project outcomes.

 More info:

https://internationalmensday.com/

Luxury Lobby at 607 Bourke Street

Located in the busy heart of Melbourne, 607 Bourke Street is superbly located and equipped to offer tenants boutique, efficient, commercial spaces with excellent natural light given the building’s corner position. Individual tenancies are surrounded by varied retail, restaurants and cafes.

BSE’s Melbourne team partnered with Primewest Management to refurbish approximately 650 square meters of ground floor facilities, including lobby, amenities, external courtyard and changes to the café tenancy. Our team delivered design and documentation services as well as advice during construction, for electrical, mechanical, fire protection and hydraulic services.

BSEs team designed services for ongoing operational efficiency, as well as considering installation requirements with minimal disruption. Given the building requirements, our design was able to support the onsite team to ensure the space would maintain its operation during construction.

Working with the architectural design of the space, our team extensively surveyed the site to ensure that the services contained in a reduced ceiling space would offer the necessary air, light and ventilation outputs, fire safety considerations and hydraulic services for other floors without impacting the architects vision.  

Wonderful World Teachers Day

Today is World Teachers Day! Originally established to set benchmarks for the training, employment and development of teachers, the day has evolved into a celebration of the significant role teachers play in the lives of children and students, their families and communities.

With many Teachers in the TeamBSE extended family and our children learning from home for much of this year, as well as the classroom, today is an extra reason to honour the resilience and innovation shown by teachers! Celebrated around the World on 5 October and in Australia 30 October (when students and teachers are back from holidays), we are taking the opportunity today of looking back at some of our favourite education (primary, secondary and tertiary) projects, and more recent designs.

Chatswood Education Precinct (concept design)

St Mary Mackillop

Science Learning Centre, The Kings School

The Ponds School

Public primary and high school.

Young Campus, TAFE Riverina

Australian Christian College, Caboolture

Q Block, Queensland University

C4A Macquarie University

General Assembly, 1 Market Place

Osteo Lab, University of Victoria

Water Week with Wade

To celebrate, National Water Week (19-25 October), we took the opportunity of speaking to Wade Prendergast, Associate & Team Leader - Hydraulic and Fire Services in our Sydney office, about all things water!

Each year, Australian Water Association facilitates National Water Week to inspire and expand awareness on the value of water. Access to clean water is an important part of our daily lives one which we may take for granted. The capacity to protect our water environments and resources, and use water wisely is in all of us as individuals, communities and organisations.

Wade has been part of Team BSE since 2012 and helped shape and grow the hydraulic and fire services teams and delivery to clients in all our offices. He brings a huge range of project sector experience from small complex kitchens tucked into commercial office buildings, infrastructure design and change in new developments, upgrade and new schools, aged care, community and hospitality spaces across the country.

Wade at his desk in Sydney.

We recently sat down with Wade to ask him some Water Week and hydraulic design questions:

Q: How does hydraulic design/ engineering benefit communities and individuals?
A: That can be a complex question, in summary, a good hydraulic designer or engineer will provide a system, technical solutions or (if appropriate) an alternate solution to provide plumbing and drainage to the building or space. Depending on the specific requirements, the design should be water efficient, that is, minimise water and resource use, fixtures and equipment fit to purpose and considerate of [alternate] water systems such as rain water or grey water re-use to benefit the building and ongoing costs in homes, workplaces, community buildings, public spaces

Q: How did you get involved in hydraulic design?
A: I started out in the industry as a plumber (hydraulic contractor), in both commercial and residential developments. Thoroughly enjoyed it and investigated options to expand my knowledge and understanding of how systems work! I completed my plumbing trade and the Cert IV in Plumbing Services which lead to my first designer role. Following that experience, TAFE NSW offer a Diploma in Hydraulic Services Design, which I completed, and I highly recommend to everyone wanting to make the change between contractor to consultant. [Side note, this course is being offered again in 2020 at North Sydney TAFE, I would encourage any hopeful designers to give it a look!]

Q: How do you re-imagine Australia’s water future?
A: Two areas of change will safeguard water for use, I am speaking from a project and designer perspective: efficient use and sufficient supply. Being able to minimise water use in a design or development best and easiest when considered early in concept. Using the expertise of the team, having the discussion and intent to leverage rainwater, grey water and efficient fixtures. Solutions are viable in many situations, which reduce reliance on network supply. The supply network is the other aspect of Australia’s water future, to ensure regular, sufficient and safe supply is a complex task for network providers in any location. Water flow, pressure, capacity, information availability, leakage prevention, maintenance and upgrade are never ending tasks.

Q: One thing for architects/ developers to consider early on in project?
A: An intentional focus on services infrastructure. It’s not the fun part of a project, it is what makes construction quicker and cheaper and a building or space user friendly, with the capacity to provide efficient solutions while minimising maintenance and costs. Discuss design solutions early with consultants such as in-ground supply tanks, the physical space required for adequate systems required under BCA and Australian Standards for long-term efficiency. I would also strongly recommend testing water infrastructure capacity (pressure and flow) prior to commencing site construction to avoid re-design when results vary.

To finish off, a couple of fun questions:

Q: Favourite dance move?
A: Hahaha, I know what you want me to say to this. Favourite dance move? Definitely “the worm”. (Author note, reach out and ask Wade about this back story)

Q: What is your go-to joke?
A: Have to pull out a classic plumbers joke:
There are 2 reasons why you should never drink toilet water.
Number 1 and Number 2.