Sambell Lodge Redevelopment
Brotherhood of St Laurence
2020
$23.73M
Clifton Hill, VIC
Project Details
4
Attributes
Overview
Building lives of dignity and inclusion: Sambell Lodge offers a safe and stable home for disadvantaged aging Australians.
Sambell Lodge, an initiative of community advocates Brotherhood of St Laurence, is a residential care facility purpose-built to address rising numbers of Australians facing disadvantages as they grow older. All of its residents have experienced a physical or mental disability, with most previously homeless or at risk of homelessness.
After a highly praised development approval process, BSL received the green light for their new, larger facility, designed to meet the evolving demands for care.
Positioned in a garden-rich setting within Melbourne’s inner north east, the new Sambell Lodge is a safe and supportive home for 114 residents. The efficiently designed four-storey structure, seamlessly blends modern aged care with accessibility, featuring amenities like a café, salon, gym, and specialised rooms.
The building combines prefabricated precast concrete with innovative brick snap inlays, along with an eclectic mix of structural steel and cladding materials to achieve a traditional aesthetic on a modest budget.
Key Challenges
We navigated the complexities of building in densely populated areas by adapting our construction approach, traffic management, and fire safety strategies to overcome significant spatial challenges.
- The new building occupied most of the site, near neighbouring buildings, which posed significant access challenges and left minimal space for storage of materials. Through an extensive traffic management plan, we established a delivery bay. We utilised our tower crane to move equipment and machinery to difficult parts of the site and also to lift workers up to locations on the external work-faces that couldn’t be accessed any other way. We also needed special boom lifts to reach some work faces. Ongoing site management ensured materials and equipment didn’t clutter the site and create unsafe working conditions.
- We redesigned the layout of the incoming services to resolve several in-ground clashes, ensuring regulatory clearances were met between services. This approach optimised the trenching path and delivered the most efficient and suitable service outcomes for both our client and future building residents.
- We built a new electrical substation pit very close to the existing building. In executing this, we completely revised the structural design and construction methods to ensure we didn’t compromise the building's integrity.