Northrop

Santa Sophia Catholic College, located in Box Hill, is a co-educational school accommodating up to 1,920 students from preschool to Year 12. The $150 million+ school structure comprises of three building zones ranging between four and six suspended stories. These zones are interconnected by large free-form architectural floor slabs. Implementing a quick-build scheme, over 750 tonnes of structural steelwork were fabricated and erected on-site. Faced with tight project timelines and complex architecture, structural steel framing was employed to decrease build time and became an architectural feature within the project. 

The college started schematic design in early 2019 and was scheduled to open in 2021. This condensed project timeline allowed for only a 10 month on-site build period! To meet the project deadline, several innovative structural design solutions were employed to compress the structural construction program and to enable early fit-out works. By embracing the principles of Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA), a quickbuild structural scheme was implemented. The school classroom modules were built from multi-storey structural steel framing with unpropped, long-span metal deck flooring. This allowed for ‘next day’ fit-out to start in the classrooms following slab concrete pours. The classroom modules were then connected with outdoor free-form concrete decks – elements off the construction critical path.

Discover more about this project here. For more information, contact Mitchell Ryan - Associcate | Structural Engineer, on 02 9241 4188.  

Feature image via Buildcorp