Marr Contracting Pty Ltd, have reached a milestone on construction of Sydney’s newest landmark, Crown Sydney.
With the project officially topped out, it was time for Marr’s 390D crane, which has been working atop Crown Sydney for the past 27 months, to be removed. Marr’s team of highly skilled riggers have been working approximately 300-metres above Sydney Harbour to remove the crane’s 46-metre boom and other sections using Marr’s unique recovery crane system – marking the latest in a series of engineering feats on the project.
As Sydney’s first luxury resort in Barangaroo, Crown Sydney will include 349 hotel rooms and suites, luxury residential apartments, 14 signature restaurants and bars, premium retail outlets, pool and spa facilities and more.
From a construction point-of-view, its location on the Barangaroo foreshore, combined with its striking architectural design, posed a number of significant construction challenges to Crown in developing their construction methodology for the project. Knowing they needed to think differently about how to construct the project they contacted The Men From Marr’s to help them come up with a solution.
Due to its location in a congested CBD waterfront space between the Harbour to the west and another construction site to the east, and the complex sculptural design which required a lot of heavy lifting to build the structural elements for the low-rise entertainment floor and 75-storey high-rise, the project required a unique craneage solution.
“Having a long-standing working relationship with Crown’s construction partners, they got us in early to help come up with a solution. When they originally contacted us, their primary concern was borne out of a previous experience where the craneage solution wasn’t able to meet the demands of working at height in a high wind area like Barangaroo. The brief, in short, was to come up with a solution that would speed up the construction program without compromising on safety or quality,” said Marr’s Managing Director, Simon Marr.
Marr’s developed the bespoke super high-speed Marr’s 390D crane with a high capacity winch system for the high-rise construction. The super high-speed crane allowed lifts of up to 25 tonnes from ground level to the top of the tower in just over a minute, with the ability to work in the high winds prevalent at this elevation, which was one of the biggest challenges facing the construction team.
Lower down, the Marr 2480D heavy lift luffing crane, the world’s largest capacity tower crane with the ability to lift up to 330 tonnes in a single lift, made fast and light work of the heavy lift requirements, lifting large steel reinforcing beams weighing up to 100 tonnes in a congested CBD site. The crane lifted the 100-tonne beams and 50-tonne columns that formed the base of the structure in single lifts, allowing the project to reduce its build time, offer a safer method of construction and reduce complexity on site.
Crown Sydney also adopted a top-down construction methodology which allowed two work fronts, with the M2480D employed to lift heavy general machinery (such as excavators and drills rigs), saving the cost of crawler cranes and allowing excavation work to be taken off critical path. It also gave Lendlease and Crown Sydney options for how to deal with any unexpected lifting requirements during the excavation works.
Marr’s team also designed a three-beam internal climbing system to suit the jump-form construction methodology used on the project, which reduced the number of climbs and disruption to the project by approximately 30 per cent with a typical 20-metre climbing cycle completed within two hours.
An additional M390D and M440D were also on-site to assist with the construction of the entertainment floor and hotel. Both crane solutions were designed to fit in with Crown’s construction methodology.
