The multi award-winning Shellharbour Civic Centre is a $60-million dollar redevelopment designed by Sydney architects DesignInc (with Lacoste and Stevenson), and constructed by Builder, ADCO Constructions and Contractor, Interior Works.
Rondo were engaged early in the project to offer expert design support, with our Technical Sales Representative, Max Dessmann, providing preliminary designs to Interior Works for internal partitions and external wall framing to library, auditorium and office areas. Rondo also completed designs for fire-rated bulkheads, internal ceilings, curved walls and external soffits Level 1 of the Auditorium required an external wall that could accommodate the wind loading associated with the open roof area and to do so, Rondo Engineers designed two x 92mm Steel Stud External Walls to be installed side by side. The wall design also included a boxed stud connection for the top of the stud walls to underside structural at 600mm centres.
Wall heights in these areas were up to 4.6 metres in height, with the top track support underside purlins at 1200mm spacing. Some walls were then completed using Rondo 92mm x 1.15bmt installed at 450mm centres, and in the same area, there were curved walls requiring Studs to be installed at 150mm centres. In the Auditorium Library there was a requirement to design an external wall to accommodate structural steel bracing. There was a preference for installing 64mm x 1.15 Steel Studs externally at 600mm centres which were to be clad with span H/240 sheet lining.
To accommodate the design criteria, Rondo provided a specification using bridged 64mm studs whereby the internal wall used the external wall for bracing support and achieved wall heights of up to 4.3 metres. There were two external soffits requiring design, the first adjoining the main entry and the second needing to accommodate architecturally designed aluminium “matchsticks” to the curved elevation. The external soffits framing was achieved using Rondo Steel Studs acting as both Stud Droppers connected to the Steel Purlins with Rondo 201 Bracket and as ceiling joists which Rondo Top Hats were installed into.
Other designs needed to solve the complexity of crossing over between material, changing from different deflection rates, weights of cladding and different fixing methods. The roof structure was constructed from purlins, which means a greater deflection and that any member spanning between the slab and the roof structure needed to account for this larger deflection.
At some points this complexity formed a challenge. An example of this is where the aluminium sheets met with an aluminium post, neither of which were Rondo products but Rondo was still able to provide a solution detail at the joint of these members. Rondo Deflection Head Track was designed to accommodate the vertical movement between the roof purlin and the aluminium post which was connected to the slab. Being a spectacular project with many architectural features, there were some more complex design issues to address during the build not only externally, but internally as well.
One of which was the internal ceiling design, which required a flow like wave ceiling and curved walls that extend close to the length of the building. The waved ceiling used the Rondo KEYLOCK® Concealed Ceiling System to form the structure while offering the flexibility to make changes in height. The curves of the building used more than one Rondo solution to create the look, with the main product being the use of our Flexible Track. Rondo Flexible Track can be bent to the radius that is required whilst still providing a straight area for the stud to be fixed to the track, making the task of creating a radius much simpler, and at the same time, still providing a structure for the steel studs.
The design of bulkheads was also required, which included an internal bulkhead to be located above the windows and below the structural steel purlins. The bulkhead was framed using Rondo 150mm and 92mm Steel Studs which acted as the bridging, bracing, restraining and dropper Studs, and were complemented by the Rondo 201 Bracket with 92mm Track. The finished bulkhead was 800mm high and up to 6800mm long and lined both sides with 13mm of Plasterboard.