As the winner of the 2012 AWA Queensland Infrastructure Innovation Award, Bligh Tanner is in the running for the national Infrastructure Innovation Award from OzWater ’13 to be held next month in Perth. David Hamlyn-Harris will be at the conference to present a paper on Stormwater Harvesting in SEQ and hopefully to bring back the prize.

To read David's paper, click here.

Rod Bligh will be presenting a paper at Concrete 2013, the biennial national concrete industry conference being held in October on the Gold Coast. The presentation will focus on the design process as well as technical challenges in achieving an Australia first use of geopolymer concrete for suspended floor construction in the building industry. The geopolymer binder used on the Global Change Institute building at UQ achieves 100% cement replacement, an initiative aimed at significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the construction industry.

To read Rod's detailed abstract, click here.

Bligh Tanner regularly works with industrial, commercial and process industry clients, delivering a wide range of structural and civil engineering services to produce innovative, efficient, cost effective and buildable solutions.

Some recent projects include:

• Structure investigations at the Port of Brisbane
• Caltex, BP and Shell infrastructure upgrades
• Motorama service centre and showroom developments
• Installation of gas refuelling facilities at Boondall, Toowong and Mt Gravatt bus depots for Brisbane City Council

Attached is a profile outlining our capabilities in this area

If you would like more information on anything contained in the attached profile, please contact us on 3251 8555 or email blightanner@blightanner.com.au.

Bligh Tanner regularly undertakes a range of complex structural, forensic, conservation and heritage related assessments, including:

- Assessments of heritage listed buildings and structures

- Forensic structural assessments

- Post-disaster structural and condition surveys

- Adaptive re-use and conservation projects

- Owner-occupier asset surveys

Attached is a profile of some of our recent projects

If you would like more information on anything contained in the attached profile, please contact us on 3251 8555 or email blightanner@blightanner.com.au.

Continuing Bligh Tanner’s longstanding relationship with Artists Milne and Stonehouse in producing a number of impressive public artworks throughout New South Wales and Queensland, the Box Kite forms the centrepiece for Landcom’s 1000 plot residential redevelopment of the former North Penrith Defence base in Sydney’s outer western suburbs.

The Box Kite draws on the first biplane flight from the site by WE Hart in the early 1900’s. The sculpture stands 12m tall and has an overall wingspan of 14m formed out of stainless steel tubular sections, curved aluminium plates and an array of tensioned stainless steel cables.

For more detailed information on the Box Kite, please contact Paul Easingwood on 3251 8555.

Bligh Tanner is proud to be a support partner of and civil and structural engineering consultant to the Brisbane Powerhouse. As part of our partnership agreement we receive open tickets which enable attendance at performances throughout the year.

To celebrate 11 years of publication of Bligh Tanner News, we offered our loyal newsletter readers the chance to win a double pass to a Powerhouse performance of their choice.

The four esteemed winners of the double passes are:

Richard Lonn, RAL Architects

Paul Hardyman, Urbis

Robert Keen, Hassell

Peter Smith, ULDA

Home to the world’s largest collection of Australian dinosaur fossils, the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum Reception Centre in Central Queensland will receive global attention at the upcoming 2012 World Architecture Festival Awards. The project has been shortlisted for the culture category and is up against other important projects such as the Yurihonjo City Cultural Centre in Japan, the brOnks Youth Theatre in Belgium and the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart.

Situated on a large messa formation about 20 kilometres outside of Winton, the 300m2 building is a complex mix of textured, irregular precast tilt panels which are coloured to blend into the surrounding landscape. Bligh Tanner has enjoyed the opportunity to be involved in this project, providing structural engineering support to Cox Rayner Architects.

The World Architecture Festival Awards will be held on 3 – 5 October in Singapore.

Read more...

Bligh Tanner is pleased to announce the appointment of our new Associate Director, Simon Kochanek. Simon joined the company in late 2009 as a Senior Structural Engineer and has since become integral to the future of Bligh Tanner. His areas of expertise lie in challenging architectural projects, industrial projects and complex heritage refurbishments. Simon has recently led the design for the rebuilding of the Picnic Bay Jetty on Magnetic Island and been Lead Structural Engineer on the $20M Motorama Moorooka facility. Simon’s other recent projects include the design of a number of education facilities, redevelopment and extensive alteration of an existing eight storey residential tower and the design of a reception centre for the Age of Dinosaurs near Winton, Central Queensland.

King George Square will be filled with temporary shelters during the Emergency Shelter Exhibition this week as local architecture studios display their designs for full-scale temporary housing prototypes. This national exhibition has been developed in response to a series of natural disasters over the past few years and aims to raise funds to support these affected areas.

Bligh Tanner assisted the Arkhefield team, who constructed a tent inspired structure using interlocking Danpalon panels providing a clean lightweight enclosure with a raised floor.

The latest section of the Northern Busway is now open, linking the RBWH Station to Kedron. Dedicated on-road bus lanes and 1.5km of tunnels make up the new stretch of road that will eventually connect the Brisbane CBD to Bracken Ridge, approximately 15km north of the city.

Bligh Tanner brought specialist transit structure experience to the project as sub-consultant to the Parsons Brinckerhoff Arup consortium. Responsibilities included structural engineering design of the stations at Kedron and Lutwyche for which Cottee Parker were the project architects and landscape structures with Tract Consultants.

This project extends our experience with Brisbane’s Busway which began at concept design stage in 1997. Most recently we have upgraded the generic design manual which controls the design of standard station elements.

South Bank’s Rain Bank stormwater harvesting scheme has been recognised again, winning a Premier's Sustainability Award for Business Eco-efficiency at the recent awards dinner.  Rain Bank also won a Healthy Waterways Award in 2011.  Bligh Tanner is very proud to have been involved with the project from the outset.  The scheme, opened by Queen Elizabeth II in October last year, is now fully operational and producing treated stormwater to irrigate the South Bank parklands and to top up water features.

View a time lapse video of the project construction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np-6oL3Bamc

Alan Hoban, Principal Environmental Engineer, presented the ‘best paper’ at the Stormwater Industry Association of Queensland (SIAQ) annual conference earlier this month. The paper, “Doing things right or doing the right things?” looked at the economics of erosion and sediment control and stormwater quality management and encouraged a stronger emphasis on the ‘urban design’ aspects of water sensitive urban design.

Our relationship with the SIAQ has provided numerous other opportunities to present at branch meetings and annual conferences. Chris Tanner gave a talk at this year’s conference about one of Bligh Tanner’s key stormwater harvesting projects titled “Stormwater Harvesting, ULDA - Raising the Bar at Fitzgibbon”. South Bank Rain Bank, an important stormwater harvesting project, was the topic of a talk given by David Hamlyn-Harris at an SIAQ branch meeting earlier this year. David is a regular industry lecturer to third year environmental engineering students at Griffith University. He also speaks at water industry conferences, and this year presented a stormwater harvesting workshop at Ozwater ’12 in Sydney (workshop organised by the Urban Water Security Research Alliance).  

The expertise of our structural engineering team is highly valued by the architecture industry. Rod Bligh is an Adjunct Teaching Fellow this semester at Bond University’s Institute of Sustainable Development and Architecture, while Paul Callum is a regular tutor at QUT’s School of Architecture and recently gave a Safety in Design presentation to the Institute of Architects.

Environmental planning is essential in the development of sustainable communities and Chris Tanner, Director and Principal Environmental Planning Engineer, has extensive experience in this field. Chris presented a paper to the Australian Institute of Architects Sustainable Communities Dialogue 2012 on June 14 titled “The Water Cycle” that explored sustainable solutions for treatment, storage and use of water. Alan Hoban has also been working as a sessional academic with QUT’s landscape architecture students on a coastal resilience studio.

Two of Bligh Tanner’s notable projects recently received recognition at the Australian Institute of Architects Awards. The UQ Fitness and Aquatic Centre in Gatton (Architectus) received a regional commendation at the 2012 Darling Downs Regional Architecture Awards. The Mt Isa Royal Flying Doctor Service Base (Architectural Practice Academy) was awarded a regional commendation and the Walter and Oliver Turnbridge Award for Building of the Year at the North Queensland Awards in March. Both projects will enter the state competition later in the year.