A tight, five-year timeline to build the Victoria Park Precinct for Brisbane’s 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games will require little less than the world’s most innovative engineering program.
The introduction of BIM from planning stages will give construction teams a headstart on the complex Victoria Park Precinct project, said civil engineer Stewart Hancock, Principal at Arup.
Embedding BIM from the start, he said, will enable federated models from the very beginning as opposed to the detailed design and construction phase. It will also drive transparency of information across disciplines, enable greater collaboration and help avoid costly and time-consuming construction clashes.
Other factors, including a deep and thorough knowledge of current infrastructure, utilities and assets above and below the ground, along with advanced, pre-cast construction methods, will also play a role in delivering the massive program in time for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games opening ceremony.
For examples of best practice engineering methodology, Hancock said, “we’re certainly drawing on some of the other global examples that Arup have been a part of”.
These include the London Olympic Games and Kai Tak Sports Park in Hong Kong. The project team behind Kai Tak, Hong Kong’s largest integrated sports, leisure and entertainment precinct, embedded building information modelling from project inception.
“I think that has been one of the biggest leaps forward in recent years,” Hancock said.
Greater use of modern, pre-cast construction methods doesn’t just accelerate productivity and performance, he said, but also significantly improves the quality of construction and safety on site.
“There are a lot of lessons that can be taken from those global examples that have had to deal with similar timeframes and similar challenges,” Hancock said.
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A mighty project
The current Victoria Park Precinct masterplan is in draft form, recently released for public consultation. Its intention is to connect Victoria Park, the new Brisbane Stadium, the National Aquatic Centre and the revitalised Brisbane Showgrounds.
On a 64-hectare site two kilometres north of Brisbane’s CBD, the project will be much more than a stadium construction. The stadium, in fact, is only one part of the challenge.
Various engineering and public works packages will combine to completely alter the entire precinct, from footpaths, water infrastructure and landscaping to a major stadium, aquatic centre and residential area.
- Brisbane Stadium: a new, 63,000-seat stadium, the largest individual piece of built infrastructure in the project, will host athletics events as well as the opening and closing ceremonies during the Games, and other major events, including AFL and cricket matches, afterwards. It is being constructed in a naturally occurring amphitheatre between two hills and will have a playing field about the same size as the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
- National Aquatic Centre: planned to be developed around the existing Centenary Pool site, which has heritage-listed elements that will be retained and incorporated.
- Brisbane Showgrounds and Athlete’s Village: this site includes residential buildings that will become housing after the Games, an upgraded main arena, restoration of heritage stands and accessibility upgrades.
- Movement and access network: with a pre-existing public transport backbone including Exhibition, Fortitude Valley, Roma Street and Bowen Hills railway stations and the Inner Northern Busway, there is no need to build a railway to the site. Instead, the focus is on making the existing system and stations capable of feeding large numbers of people safely and comfortably into and through the precinct. This will involve footpaths, cycleways, roads, station upgrades and vertical transport.
- Landscape, water and ecology: the current Precinct Draft Legacy Plan divides places and spaces into wetlands, urban forest, ridgelines, community gateways and venue commons. On top of the landscaping challenges, including the restoration and expansion of wetland system York’s Hollow, the projects include stormwater management and other water and electricity infrastructure.
The integration of BIM from the very beginning is vital because of what is underground, Hancock said.
“Even if you’re just mapping out future trenching for the trees to be brought in, that means you can lay your utilities with confidence,” he said.
“Your goal is to move things once, build once, build right. That comes from having great models that allow great planning and design.”
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A number of people working on the Victoria Park Precinct project gained experience on the London 2012 program and on Kai Tak Sports Park, as well as other major projects around the world.
“What we’re talking about here is a large-scale project in the context of any city hosting an Olympic Games, but a lot of great work has been happening across the industry over the years since the announcement, so we’re ready.”
“This is what legacy planning looks like,” said Deputy Premier of Queensland Jarrod Bleijie. “We are not building venues for the four weeks of Olympic and Paralympic competition; we are building a precinct that will connect employment, education and health care centres with communities and serve Queenslanders for generations.”
