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 response to 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’s blend of precast concrete, structural steel, and innovative brick snap inlays for a traditional aesthetic, achieved a thoughtful and inclusive design within 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.
- Underlying geological conditions required a selection of large machinery to complete piling and bulk excavation works. This created significant vibration felt by surrounding neighbours. We pre-emptively distributed regular notices detailing progress and upcoming works. We also held multiple meetings with neighbours to address their concerns.
- We redesigned the layout of the incoming services to resolve a number of clashes and ensure we achieved all regulatory clearances between services.
- We built a new electrical substation pit very close to the existing building. This required us to completely revise the structural design and construction methods to ensure we didn’t compromise the building's integrity.