The new Western Sydney Airport is set to become a world-class international airport, servicing up to 10 million passengers a year.
Western Sydney International Airport is one of the biggest infrastructure projects since the Sydney Harbour Bridge and is set to be invaluable to improving opportunities in Sydney's West. Estimated to accommodate up to 10 million passengers per year, the development will provide thousands of local jobs, meaning less congestion on roads, and shorter commutes, promoting a better work-life balance boosting the regional economy.
TTW has been engaged for Structural, Civil, Facade and Construction Engineering services, including the design of the Baggage Handling System (BHS) support structures and Structural Peer Review. TTW also provided steel shop detailing services to accelerate and de-risk procurement pathways and cost certainty and structural design of the roof secondary steel structure as well as the internal border agency fitout and miscellaneous steelwork around the terminal, including the steelwork supporting the sandstone paneling around the terminal interior.
The vast size of the airport, and many unique façade elements throughout the airport’s terminal and piers, provided an opportunity for our Façade team to showcase our expertise, undertaking the following:
- Blast design and physical security
- Complex geometries
- Façade structural certification
- Thermal analysis and condensation risk assessments
- Waterproofing and performance solutions durability and material studies
- Design, documenting and certification of internal façades and screens, balustrades, pre-cast and other external façades, roof and ceiling elements as well as border security, passenger and baggage handling areas
Particularly challenging was the design of the stunning ceiling, consisting of one-directional curved extruded battens suspended off the roof structure in a staggered set-out to create a three-dimensional ‘wave-like’ pattern. This 31,000sqm feature ceiling covers the full extent of the main terminal, piers and external covered areas.
TTW worked in close collaboration with the contractor and suppliers to optimise material usage and designs, enabling a practical installation method to develop and certify the feature ceiling. We needed to find the ‘sweet spot’ where the architectural vision met material limitations turning our client’s goals into a reality.
Our Civil team have provided peer review for airside apron pavement and stormwater, as well as approximately 110,000sqm of roads, car parks, paved footpaths, emergency vehicles on trafficable pavers.
The Construction Engineering team developed various strategies to speed up the construction phase of the project. Included in this was the assessment of 18-metre freestanding reinforced concrete columns, the staged construction of the roof, various basement retention schemes to allow early backfilling works, and the peer-review of some major site amenity structures.
