A 15 storey building on the corner of High Street and Botany Street, inside a live hospital and university precinct, with bridges, atriums, sunhoods and a lot of glass. That is the UNSW Health Translation Hub, and everything about its facade makes access harder than a flat curtain wall would be.
Hansen Yuncken engaged Karabiner under the BMU and Facade Safe Access System package to design, supply and install the lot: facade access, rope access and height safety, delivered to Australian Standards, the project's Facade Access Strategy and the statutory requirements that sit over it.
The problem the facade set
The building is highly articulated. Bridges, atriums, sunhoods, large glass panels, podium roofs and the main roof level all have to be reachable, and a system that covers 90 per cent of a facade is not a facade access system. It is a list of places you cannot clean.
Three things made it harder than the geometry alone.
It is a live precinct. Working inside an operating hospital and university campus puts hard limits on noise, traffic control and working hours. You plan around the site, not the other way round.
Everything interfaces with something else. Structural, services, facade and bridge link contractors all had work in the same zones, and Green Star requirements applied across the project.
The cast-ins are unforgiving. The rope access BMU and pony cast-ins, davit sockets, BMU tracks and power brackets all had to land in exactly the right position, without compromising watertightness or the architectural finishes. Get one wrong and the fix is a penetration through a completed facade.
That last risk is the one that needed BMU expertise rather than a general trade package. Cast-ins go in during the pour. There is no second attempt.
Full coverage means every panel, including the ones behind the sunhoods.
What we installed
The package covered the full facade safe access system:
- rope access BMUs with an auxiliary hoist
- rope access ponies
- davit arms and davit sockets
- restraint systems
- hot dip galvanised track systems across all roof zones
Those systems were laid out to reach the Wallace Wurth Bridge, the Children's Hospital Bridge, the podium levels, the Level 06 and Level 08 terraces and the Level 15 roof, so the whole envelope is covered rather than the easy parts of it.
Alongside the hardware we provided the structural interface details, coordination with the project consultants, engineering certification and the full documentation set: as-builts, manuals and statutory signage.
The equipment was engineered to meet WorkCover requirements and Australian Standards, including the details that matter on a finished building. Non marking wheels, full safety limits, alarms and emergency stops.
A rope access pony on one of the terraces. Terraces are usually where facade coverage falls apart.
How it was built
The works were staged to line up with Hansen Yuncken's construction programme, which meant starting long before anything visible went in.
Cast-ins first. We supervised the cast-in elements during the concrete pours and surveyed the anchors once they were in. Surveying is the step people skip, and it is the one that catches a socket that has moved during the pour while there is still time to do something about it.
Then the fixed systems. BMU tracks positioned, davit sleeves mounted, static lines fitted, restraint systems installed.
Then commissioning. The rope access BMUs and ponies were installed and commissioned, and operating zones were verified rather than assumed.
WHS controls were maintained across every level of a live site throughout. Coordination ran continuously with the structural, mechanical, electrical and facade trades, covering penetrations, glass and materials lifting, power post installation and the pony cast-in anchors.
One detail worth calling out: the systems were commissioned before practical completion and then commissioned again after Hansen Yuncken had used the BMU during construction. A machine that has done construction duty is not in the same condition as one straight out of the box, and the asset owner should be handed the second result, not the first.
Hot dip galvanised track across the roof zones. The curve is what gets the machine to the awkward elevations.
Where it landed
The building has a fully certified, compliant facade access system covering window cleaning, periodic maintenance and glass replacement, installed to Green Star and Australian Standards requirements, with zero safety incidents recorded across the works.
The handover included the documentation, the commissioning records and the training, which is what turns a system into something a facilities team can actually use on a Tuesday morning in five years' time.
If you are managing an existing building and are not certain your system is compliant or properly documented, that is what certification and audit is for.
The same problem on other buildings
Live health precincts come up often. The John Hunter Hospital expansion had the same underlying constraint: a hospital that stays fully operational while major construction happens around it, which dictates how and when access systems can go in.
Complex facade geometry is the other recurring one. The Ribbon at Darling Harbour needed heavily customised access because of its curves and non linear form, for the same reason the Health Translation Hub did.
Where a building needs abseil systems and anchors rather than a machine, that falls under rope access maintenance and height safety installation.
For an example of the same design and structural interface work applied inside a building rather than on its facade, see the Bomac rail package at Powerhouse Parramatta, where we also supplied two BMU systems.
Talk to us early
The cheapest time to solve facade access is while the structure is still being designed, because that is when cast-ins, roof zones and track routes are still free to move. The most expensive time is after the facade is on. If you have a project heading toward that decision, contact Karabiner and we will work through the strategy with you. You can also see the team behind this work on our people page.
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