Case Study
Melbourne Arena Facade Upgrade With ASKIN Volcore
When Hisense Arena, now known as Melbourne Arena identified cladding materials that required updating since being built 20 years ago, they didn’t muck around with the safety of its 1.5 million visitors each year.
Melbourne Arena in conjunction with the Victorian Government engaged Peddle Thorpe Architects, Domain National as the nominated builder and ASKIN Performance Panel to manufacture, supply and install the upgraded façade panel product.
ASKIN Performance Panels Group Sales and Marketing Manager, Adam Shannon says it was a great opportunity for an Australian owned and operated company, also based in Victoria to be able to put together a complete building solution for the Arena.
PROJECT DETAILS
Melbourne and Olympic Park Trust
Builder
Domain National
Architect
Peddle Thorp
Lead Engineers:
Aurecon Group
Products
ASKIN VivID
Core: Volcore
Profile:
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Seamless
Colours:
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COLORBOND® Metallic Skybridge
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COLORBOND® Metallic Citi
Services
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Design and drafting
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Specification
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Engineering
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Logistics
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Recladding
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Manufacturing
“ASKIN were able to adapt and change what we manufacture and make something specific to what the client needed while ensuring we meet the building code requirements of today,” says Adam.
ASKIN’s Dandenong manufacturing facility upgraded manufacturing equipment to design and develop a specific width and thickness panel using Volcore Vivid.
ASKIN Volcore Vivid is a non-combustible certified building product that Domain National was able to have independently certified tested and validated.
Domain National set an ambitious goal to complete the removal and replacement of 6,500 m2 of cladding in only 12 weeks.
Domain National General Manager, Zed Macinkovic describes this as a massive project for all organisations involved that required a lot of preliminary work, all to be completed in a tight timeframe.
“We had a 12-week window to complete the work before the Australian Open and as a result, we spent 25,500 hours getting it done. The customer was over the moon. No one could believe that we finished it considering we were initially only supposed to get half the project done,” says Zed.
ASKIN had a project plan in place however, like every project there were challenges along the way. This was mainly due to access, working around the public and pre-scheduled events such as sporting events and concerts.
Additional unplanned materials were also required that were not budgeted for particularly within the internal of all the plenums on the top levels.
“We had to continually improvise access and find safe ways to do things. With all these additional works and setbacks, it did not change our end date. We just had to work a little harder to compress more work into the same timeframe,” says Adam.
“It was a great feat we did for the Victorian people, we made the building safe, and we should be proud of that and what we achieved,” says Zed.
The project was handed over in time for the Australian Open in December 2018.