2022 PIF Regatta

Godfrey Frederick was thrilled at the opportunity to take part in the Property Industry Foundation’s 2022 Regatta. After a week of dreadful weather, the sun poked it’s head out and Godfrey, alongside industry colleagues enjoyed a relaxed afternoon as they soaked in the beauty of Sydney Harbour.

With his sailing gloves on, Godfrey was at the helm, cruising onboard ‘Dancing with the Wind’, involvement with the Regatta is another way BSE engages with our charity partners and support the PIF House Program, to build homes for homeless youth! Godfrey reflects on the day,

“ “What a great way to spend a Friday afternoon. The weather behaved, the sailing was fantastic and I didn’t fall in! Second most important thing was that it was so nice to see so many industry friends, some that I hadn’t seen for two years! Most importantly though was that it was all for a very worthy cause.” ”

— Godfrey Frederick

BSE is a passionate corporate donor of the Property Industry Foundation and the PIF Regatta is one of our favourite fundraising events on the year. The Property Industry Foundation work to build safe environments and create a better life for hundreds of young Aussies doing it tough. Youth homelessness is hugely prevalent and affects 44,000 young Australians, with 1 in 3 young people being turned away from accommodation each night.

For more information on how you can get involved: https://pif.com.au/

International Women’s Day 2022

Happy International Women’s Day.

At BSE, we strive to create a balanced, equal and fair work place. A place that acts as a safe space for women and men alike. A place where every voice is heard, big or small. Where every opinion is observed, considered.

However, despite these attempts to create a balanced workplace, there’s always potential to grow, always space to expand. So, on this International Women’s Day, we work to #BreaktheBias. We work to lean into a ‘gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination. A world that's diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together we can forge women's equality. Collectively we can all #BreakTheBias’. - International Women’s Day

As a small gesture to the various strong, powerful women of BSE, a lunch and empowerment presentation by Trudy MacDonald was organised. She talked our teams through the many walls and challenges that she has come up against, we discussed various different approaches to handle those situations and talked about the sort of future we envision and the steps we can collectively take to #BreakTheBias.

10 Years of Wade

Last week, our Sydney team took the opportunity to celebrate with Wade Prendergast on his 10-year anniversary at BSE. Wade is an integral part of the BSE community and an exceptionally talented engineer and team leader.

Wade has been with BSE since 2012, in that time the company has seen significant growth, evolution and change, and we couldn’t be happier to have had an absolute powerhouse member of the BSE community like Wade to have been there every step of the way.

 Andrew Fraser, CEO, took the opportunity to express his personal appreciation for the enthusiasm, commitment and time Wade has put into BSE. He commented that:

““Over the past 10 years, we’ve seen Wade grow in his professional life and in his personal life, and I couldn’t be prouder of the engineer, team leader, team player and friend that Wade has proven himself to be”.”

— Andrew Fraser

Team Appreciation | Global Day of the Engineer

Building Services Engineers, BSE. Key word: engineers.

Today marks the Global Day of the Engineer.

Nationally, BSE’s teams are filled to the brim with an abundance of talent & expertise across all facets of the business, but our business is engineering. Our engineers are the absolute powerhouse of our business, our client offering, our true partnership commitment and project delivery.

Our engineers are fun, diligent, witty, creative, explorative, innovative, and incredibly committed. Committed to their job, your projects, and our team.

We couldn’t be more thankful for the hours of hard work and dedication our teams put in, so in a small but tasty gesture of thanks, we shared some sweet treats to recognise the day and our engineer’s efforts.

Out & About | ACT Residential & Planning Outlook lunch

OUT & ABOUT | Our Director - National Strategic Partnerships, Godfrey Frederick is relishing the opportunity to be travelling to our various offices again.

This week, he and ACT Director, Brendon Newham attended the Property Council of Australia’s ACT Residential & Planning Outlook lunch.

The two shared the common sentiment of how great it is for borders to be open and events like this back in full swing.

The residential market is absolutely booming in the ACT and our teams are well across it, Godfrey and Brendon enjoyed an opportunity to hear from residential specialists Nerida Connisbee (Ray White) and Tim Lawless (Corelogic) to deepen their knowledge of what the residential landscape will look like in the coming months/years, while also enjoying a lunch with some of our industry and project partners

Meat & Wine Co

As so many of TeamBSE are big fans of meat and wine, it’s safe to say we were thrilled to be engaged across multiple Meat & Wine Co projects nationally. The enjoyment of working on hospitality projects grows, as the uniqueness of Meat & Wine Co restaurants make them incredibly interesting to be involved with.

Meat & Wine Co, Adelaide

BSE partnered with Seagrass Hospitality and Design Partnerships Australia to design and deliver the Canberra and Adelaide restaurants, both completed in 2021. Meat & Wine Co distinguish themselves as having a consistent theme across all of their establishments and maintaining an homage to African symbolism as a deeply rooted theme. This meant, our engineering and design team had a variety of design considerations to ensure the restaurants were able to maintain the aesthetic consistency while being functional, our solutions included an integrated fit out approach, kitchen exhaust/makeup and trade waste design.

A huge consideration across BSE’s involvement with the Adelaide restaurant is that the building housing the restaurant is heritage listed. Developing a design within a heritage listed building creates a number of challenges, including input and exhaust louvres on the façade however, our skilled teams provided solutions based on extensive hospitality experience to minimise impact of services on the look and feel of the restaurant.

An opposite approach was needed with the design of the Canberra restaurant at 1 Constitution Place. the restaurant is nestled at the base of a new development within the CBD. BSE was able to meet the design intent to maintain a consistent approach across the lighting styles and design maintain the overall ‘theme’ of Meat & Wine Co’s various restaurants, despite the significantly differing exteriors.

Meat & Wine Co, Canberra

BSE continues our Meat & Wine Co. partnership delivering an additional two projects at Norwest NSW and Southbank VIC. Our teams benefit from the lessons learnt and innovative solutions already used in Adelaide and Canberra to implement those benefits across the new restaurants.

THROWBACK | How BSE Celebrated the End of 2021

BSE’s Sydney & National Team

Off the back of a mammoth year, BSE’s state-based teams all celebrated the end of a trying but incredibly successful year.

BSE’s Sydney-based head office celebrated in style with games, food, music, drinks and laughs at a garden party, kindly hosted by Andrew & Nicki Fraser.

BSE’s Brisbane Team

BSE’s Brisbane team had an afternoon and evening out on the town - eating, drinking, dancing and celebrating a hugely successful year.

The Melbourne team enjoyed some wonderful Mexican food, gulped down a spicy margarita or two and partied the night away!

BSE’s Melbourne Team

BSE’s Canberra Team

The Canberra team enjoyed a wonderful dinner at a local favourite with their partners, laughing and sharing stories.

And, the Adelaide team enjoyed a delightful Saturday afternoon with great food, great drinks and great company, celebrating the growth of their team and a successful year.

BSE’s Adelaide Team

The BSE community are all pivotal to such a cohesive, positive work environment. We’ve loved celebrating together, and now we’ve enjoyed looking back and reminiscing on those celebrations (without a sore head the next morning!).

END OF YEAR MESSAGE FROM ANDREW FRASER, CEO

Our CEO, Andrew Fraser, shares his end of year reflection:

“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 couldn’t be more grateful for the various pillars of support around and within the BSE Community. ”

— Andrew Fraser

Andrew with BSE’s fluffiest team members, Lou & Gert

We entered 2021 with optimism for what it would hold. While BSE have had a monumental year of growth – both within our teams but also within the various projects and project partners BSE have worked across and with, it has also been an unpredictably challenging year across all platforms.

Despite this, the BSE Community – with the help of our highly valued project partners and clients, have banded together and powered through one of the more challenging years we’ve encountered.

BSE are currently working across some of our largest projects ever, our teams have grown like never before, and expanded to include significant strength across all disciplines. We’ve also had a lot of fun along the way.

Our incredible teams have continued to deliver outstanding project results whilst adapting to the continually changing ‘norm’.

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, and extend another warm thank you to our Teams who have gone above & beyond to deliver exceptional work.

Out & About | PCA Christmas Lunches

Andrew, Nicki, Chris & Amelia (back), and David, Jessica & Godfrey (front) enjoying the NSW PCA Lunch with some of our project partners.

The BSE teams have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to attend the New South Wales, Victorian & South Australian Property Council of Australia Christmas lunches over the past couple of weeks.

After a year which has presented so many highs and lows, we’ve relished the opportunity for borders to have reopened and our team members to be free to travel interstate once again, connecting with our property partners within the industry and
the teammates we’ve missed so much!

Orlando, Jessica, Nicki and Andrew enjoying the SA PCA Lunch

Nithin & Godfrey (back) and Terrence & Amelia (front) enjoying the VIC PCA Lunch, with some of our valued project partners.

Welcoming even more 2021 New Starters

Since we last highlighted our new starters, TeamBSE have welcomed even more incredible new people in all our offices this year, bringing exceptional technical experience, innovative ideas, and a whole lot of laughs.

BSE is made up of talented, professional, creative, and passionate people, who work hard and have some fun along the way.

Our promise to our team is building for growth, innovation, engineering excellence and BSE fun!

If you’re interested in joining TeamBSE, we share all our open roles on our Careers page or pop your CV through to careers@bse.com.au if your expertise aligns!

Steady as she goes continued

An update from our CEO Andrew Fraser, steady as she goes continued:

As fatigued as we all are around COVID-19, there can be no doubt that it has changed the world and our way of working forever.

Since April 2020 BSE’s approach has been to take a steady-as-she-goes approach, ensuring our teams deliver strong internal collaboration and coordination processes as part of our standard project practice.

Nearing the end of another year, this process has ensured our teams have utilised the strength and flexibility of the industry and continue to produce incredible project outcomes, from home, or from offices. Practically in 2019, BSE strategically moved towards a cloud based and SaaS technology focus, so when lockdowns begun, we were well placed to swiftly shift and allow our team members to work from home safely and practically, with very little disruption to our clients and project partners.

The word ‘resilience’ has been thrown around a lot, and while some associations are less than positive, it’s apt: a response or recovery from a crisis. COVID-19 has been a health crisis and for many an economic crisis. At BSE, our goal moving into 2022 is to transition from requiring team members to be resilient towards empowering them as calm, proactive, flexible and growth minded. Our incredible team have been able to preserve the great social connections of our teams and offices in a remote setting where necessary and in the office where possible. We have provided practical mental health check ins, regular business updates, casual catchup opportunities, remote games and meets to involve as many people as possible in ways that suited them.

As a national business, we remain focused and ready to adapt to and benefit from the many and varied opportunities that we expect to identify in 2022.

THROWBACK | RFS

As Australia heads into another bushfire season, we’re taking a moment to look back on the incredible facility which supports the RFS NSW in their marvellous work to keep communities safe.

Image courtesy of Sydney Olympic Park Business Association

NSW Rural Fire Services are based in Sydney Olympic Park, with four floors dedicated to the headquarters providing the agency with a state-of-the-art control centre, supporting office spaces and high-quality end of trip facilities.  With 180 screens, 640km of data cables and 5,200 data access points, the IT and data setup alone is singular configuration as part of an integrated fitout and support more than half of NSW’s RFS personnel and volunteers. The building achieved a 5 Green Star, NABERS energy and water rating on completed.

BSE worked with NSW RFS and their project management team to develop the scope for the new facility, and then continued involvement on the client-side team providing design peer review and advisory services. Our team delivered this value across mechanical, electrical, fire and hydraulic services.

Being part of this project and providing value in ensuring NSW Rural Fire Service ended up with a workable and functional facility was a huge honour to be part of and support the RFS in their incredible work for the NSW communities and keeping people safe.

Image courtesy of RFS NSW on Twitter

Out & About

Our Director - National Strategic Partnerships, Godfrey Frederick has been delighted to take full advantage of easing restrictions in NSW and engage with industry friends in person again.

This week, Godfrey was able to enjoy the Melbourne Cup while on Sydney Harbour! Of the day, Godfrey said

“It’s a very different way to watch the race and it rocked. It might have been interesting if it had rained but the sun gods were with us. Just so nice to be back out at a face to face event. To be in a corporate social setting with a group of people who really appreciated the new found liberty was a joy. Here’s to many more!”

Godfrey was a guest of Unispace, aboard the Glass Island vessel.

Throwback to Redhead Gardens Aged Care

This project expanded on Whiddon Group’s existing aged care facility in Redhead Gardens with the additional of 120 beds and ensuites, a new RACF building and the extension/refurbishment of the existing RACF building. A new commercial laundry and kitchen and a range of resident accessible rooms, staff rooms, public rooms and plant/services rooms were also provided, expanding upon the existing community care services.

BSE’s team, led by Stuart Johnson, delivered concept, design, documentation, and construction phase services for mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, fire protection, lift, acoustic and ESD services for this $30 million project. The project went through Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) at approx. 50% design with BSE delivering documentation to 80% completion for finalisation by a D&C contractor. BSE’s team continued to add value to our project partners by acting on behalf of the client in a review role during design finalisation and construction.

With a significant ESD focus, our project team was able to provide initiatives such as PV arrays, battery storage, efficient lighting and centralised controls systems, geothermal, centralised solar boost hot water integrated with the laundry appliances, centralised air conditioning with heat recovery, showing how our bottom line sustainability commitment takes a standard multi-disciplinary design and leverages it into reduced operating costs and lower carbon emissions for Whiddon Group and residents of the new facility.

National Safe Work Month #ThinkWorkBeSafe

October is National Safe Work Month and BSE took the opportunity to touch base with all our team members through a safety chat over a cuppa.

After some live interactive polling established just how much knowledge our team retained about health and safety in the workplace, a quick refresher on health and safety at BSE provided a touch point on the essential point of consultation and ensuring the message of “Safety is everyone’s responsibly” was shared.

As October is also Mental Health Month, the chat also covered the necessity of ensuring mental health as a priority. Refreshing our team on the recent R U OK? Day message and ensuring it extends to 365 days of the year, our National Operations Manager, Jessica Chesser, has taken the time to speak to each team member and work through the challenges of the past 18+ months, return to the office and lasting changes with all our team members individually, to ensure our polices, procedures and BSE Community can transition to living with COVID-19 world, while ensuring we prioritise maintaining or improving the physical, psychological and mental health and safety of our people!

The opportunity to touch base with our teams in real time, ensure they can Think Safe, Work Safe, Be Safe every day as part of national safe work month was great. Just one moment of our ongoing commitment to ensure the health and safety of our team members.

For more information on Safe Work Australia’s National Safe Work Month:

https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/national-safe-work-month

First Ever Five Guys in Australia

American burger giant Five Guys announced in early 2021 (via Good Food) it would be opening a store in Australia, and this first store opened in September 2021. Located on Mulgoa Road, Penrith (west of Sydney), starting with take away due to current COVID restrictions and opening to diners as restrictions allow.

Sydney-based hospitality company Seagrass Boutique Hospitality Group are running the facility, which is adjacent to other hospitality and entertainment amenities, and joins 1700 Five Guys restaurants across North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. 

Expanding on our successful partnership with Seagrass Boutique Hospitality Group with a commitment to make the initial Australian Five Guys a success, BSE’s experienced team, delivered mechanical, electrical, fire and hydraulics services for the full internal facility, working with the existing base building constraints. The Five Guys model require higher than usual loads for MEP services to facilitate delivery of high-quality products at the Five Guys standards. Specifically, without freezers or microwaves, produce is fresh and handmade daily. Our designers and engineers used intricate calculations and analysis of existing infrastructure to ensure the space was fully utilised and met the exacting standards required by Five Guys globally. This model will be rolled out across further Five Guys sites in Australia.

BSE’s design and engineering team worked with Design Partnership Australia and Seagrass Boutique Hospitality Group to convert Five Guys strict USA designs to comply to the Australian regulatory and construction environment, without altering the utility of the streamlined production and delivery model known around the world. This clear outcome required exceptional collaboration between our teams and BSE’s own highest standard internal review and coordination works.

BSE’s team delivered an alternative solution to ensure the non-compliant fire services satisfied the latest NCC and Australian Standards while working within the requirements of the existing building and its constraints. The addition of new gas and water mains ensure the facility has supply required upon commissioning and the innovative analysis and design ensured the required equipment could work within the parameters without the need to upgrade electrical infrastructure.