The International Apartment Building

We were involved in the International from the design phase, engineering a single scaffold that could see the building through demolition, extension and reclad without ever coming down between phases. The finished structure ran roughly 160 metres around the perimeter and stood 50 metres high.

The brief was complex: demolish the original octagonal façade down to floor slabs, beams and the central core; extend the floors on all eight sides into a square footprint; install a new full-height façade; and finally fit an exo-skeleton over the whole building. Only Layher Allround equipment made that achievable.

We designed a “3-in-1” scaffold so each phase flowed straight into the next — as one phase finished, the inner scaffold rolled out and the contractor moved on immediately, with no wait for removal and rebuild. The design also let work continue while layers of scaffold were peeled back. That was demanding engineering: the corners of the second layer had to span around 30 metres with nothing to tie to until the new corner decks were installed.

One corner sat over a heritage building, so we built a full crash deck over it and cantilevered the entire corner — no small thing with scaffold rising 40 metres above. We also propped the lower floors to transfer the scaffold’s weight from the podium to the ground, and to allow the top two floor slabs and roof slab to be cut out. A high-profile job, and a real challenge for everyone on it.