News

Adelaide Town Hall is about to have its 150th birthday, having been officially opened on 20 June 1866. It was the first of the great Town hall buildings erected in Australia, and at that time it was by far the largest and grandest building in Adelaide, standing head and shoulders above the largely single storey and quite sparse city.

The Auditorium on the first floor was the central element of the building and it has survived intact to the present day. As something of a birthday present, Adelaide City Council proposed to repaint the space after its last redecoration 30 years ago. Each time this large space was previously painted it had been closed for months, but as it is today a much sought after space, only a period of seven straight days were free to carry out the work.

Achieving the seemingly impossible, a team of about 28, including painters, scaffolders, conservators and Council staff, worked 24 hours a day for the seven days to complete the work.

Swanbury Penglase were fortunate in having been involved in the project, including carrying out preliminary inspections of the ceiling, research to understand the history of the redecoration of the space, preparation of a revised colour scheme as well as inspections while the work was underway.

A 2-minute timelapse video records a taste of this remarkable effort of all those involved. Thanks to Adelaide City Council and Chris Oaten of Insight Visuals.

We recently completed Mullawirra, a new residence on a greenfield site at the top of Willunga Hill which you can read more about here. While we were down on site with photographer David Russell, we were lucky enough to get some drone footage of the project. The birds eye view really captures the beauty and remoteness of the site and gives an insight into just why our clients are loving their sea change. We look forward to revisiting the project once the landscaping has been complete.

Our heritage team leader Andrew Klenke presented a Paper to the Australia ICOMOS Conference ‘Fabric’ during November 2015.

Andrew spoke about Old Parliament House in relation to the technical approach to conserving fabric.  Andrew has also written an essay on Old Parliament House which has been published in Materiality Brick and Block in Contemporary Australian Architecture (Ron Ringer, 2015).

If you would like to read the full paper presented at ICOMOS, please click here.

The Stage 1 conservation works on the two former Hart’s Mill flour mill buildings at Port Adelaide, which Swanbury Penglase documented for Renewal SA, is drawing to a close.

A landmark element is the large wind driven vent that crowns the ridge of the roof at the top of the tall brick mill building. Its exact age is uncertain, but similar vents have been installed on this part of the roof for over 100 years.

Affectionately called ‘the tuba’ by the trades of the contractor, G-Force, the vent had to be disconnected and craned down to the ground to properly carry out the necessary repairs. This was mainly due to corrosion of the steel which were placing it at risk of collapse. The repairs were carried out by Metal Fabricators at Edwardstown, including welding in a new plate at the central support pivot, replacing the bottom ring and the rim of the wind vein, as well as welding in new steel to major holes around its base. Repairs were also carried out to the bearing which had prevented the vent swinging around with the direction of the wind.

The vent was then fully prepared and painted using a very durable paint system and a grille fitted within its mouth to prevent the pigeons that had previously been roosting within the structure. The timber support structure which had been suffering from rot caused by water entering through the rust holes was in the meantime repaired, before the vent was lifted back into place. Interestingly the top sits on the base without any fixings, kept in place by its own self weight.

While not quite as good as new, the signature vent can now look forward to a much extended lease of life.

For our latest residential project our client approached us with a brief to create a new environmentally sustainable two bedroom home to replace their existing 1960’s energy sapping cream brick residence.

The resulting design comprises an in-situ concrete raft slab, steel superstructure, LVL rafters and reverse brick veneer wall construction to both the skillion roofed open plan living area and the sleeping quarters. The cladding is predominantly reverse brick veneer with a lightweight steel lining to the external side and masonry internally in order to protect the thermal mass.

The form of the house is striking, with wrapped skillion ends to buffer eastern and western sun whilst opening up living areas to the northern light. Thermal performance was a major factor in siting the plan-form; carefully positioned awnings and retractable blinds ensure optimal active environmental control.

The use of reverse brick-veneer construction has also enabled the masonry thermal mass to be insulated via the use of high performance thermal (and acoustic) insulation.

The plan defines a separation of living and sleeping quarters, expressed in such a way to present two distinct plan forms, linked by a central glazed hallway link. This has also enabled the creation of separate summer and winter courtyards, located to take advantage of conditions responsive to the extreme ends of each season.

The project is currently on site and is due for completion in early 2016. We look forward to showing you some more photos then.

Adelaide Microscopy opened their new state of the art $4.1 million ‘George Rogers Laboratory’ refurbishment on the 23rd of July, 2015. The facility is named after Emeritus Professor George Rogers AO FAA who is recognised as one of the first transmission electron microscopists in Australia and who, well into his eighties, continues to use the facilities regularly.

The facility includes a new $3.6 million atomic resolution transmission electron microscope that will form a critical part of future research work. The design involved the provision of a tailor made magnetically shielded laboratory to house the microscope which stands at nearly 3.5 metres tall.

“It is the first atomic resolution electron microscope to be installed in South Australia”, said Mr Angus Netting, Director Adelaide Microscopy, “and is the only one with its significant level of capability nationally. It’s a critical piece of research infrastructure that is now available to Australian researchers and to Australian industry nationally. Microscopy allows researchers to view nano-materials literally at the atomic level. That means being able to study material atom by atom to better understand, for example, chemical reactions critical to energy conversion or the structure of nano-crystals used for optical communication or sensing.”

The project, undertaken over the last two years, saw detailed work undertaken by a very collaborative client, design and construction team to ensure a highly successful outcome.

Working in association with Sydney-based architectural firm BVN, Swanbury Penglase is currently hard at work completing detailed documentation for the University of South Australia’s new 14 storey Health Innovation Building (HIB) on North Terrace.

Located alongside the Morphett Street Bridge and adjacent the New Royal Adelaide Hospital, the SAHMRI building and Adelaide University’s (under-construction) Medical and Nursing School, HIB is a high-profile landmark and an integral part of the new South Australian Health and Biomedical Precinct. Our landscape architecture team is also currently working in collaboration with the Adelaide University design team to develop a new suspended landscaped ‘urban park’ between both buildings.

The building will house the Centre for Cancer Biology (CCB) which will link the UniSA community with up to 250 of Australia’s top cancer and health researchers.  In addition, the building will feature innovative, multidisciplinary research laboratories, practice based teaching spaces and clinical spaces designed to grow the next generation of nursing and allied health graduates.  At the lower levels it will feature Adelaide’s first Science Creativity Education Studio (SciCeD) intended to inspire a new generation of science aware community.

Site works are scheduled to commence in June 2015, with the project planned to open to the public in early 2018.

We are proud to announce that the New Health Facilities at Glenside Campus are complete! The project team attended the official opening by Premier Jay Weatherill at a ceremony in the new Administration and Learning Services building on Sunday the 28^th of July. Swanbury Penglase in association with Medical Architecture have been working towards this goal for six years and we are thrilled with the result. The new facilities have received international recognition and have  set a new benchmark for mental health design and are already being cited as an exemplar for mental health design in the United Kingdom.

If you’re a Sitenotes reader you’ll know that Swanbury Penglase and Immanuel College have been working together on a really exciting project – The Margaret Ames Centre.

This new facility for senior students sets the benchmark for cutting edge learning environments. It will contain studio spaces, an open plan learning hub, senior school administration, conference facility and 200 seat lecture theatre.

Construction is about to commence and we look forward to bringing you more details as things develop onsite, in the meantime view a walk-through animation by Tree House Studio below.