Farra proud of maintenance units

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Budding young engineers have had an opportunity to view the largest building maintenance unit (BMU) completed at Farra Engineering at Dunedin, prior to it being dismantled and shipped to Sydney.

It was one of two building maintenance units created to be installed to provide access on Quay Quarter Tower, a 50-storey commercial building offering 90,000sq m of office-space, in Sydney’s Circular Quay.

The 200m high tower will have unusual geometry and massing. It will be constructed as a series of cantilevered glass-skinned volumes stacked upon each other to provide a facade and an atrium that will cut all the way through the building.

Farra has been involved with the access consultancy at a very early stage with the challenging building design, ending up having 42 versions of BMU setout solutions that it co-ordinated with the architects and consultants.

Farra’s design and innovation manager Thomas Schweitzer said BMUs were on the top of a building, suspending people and allowing safe access to maintain the facade, such as window cleaning and allowing for replacement of panels on high-rise buildings, instead of being reliant on abseilers.

It had been a significant project, which began for Farra about four years ago, and it had been challenging, particularly through Covid-19 when the world stopped, but Australia never really stopped, Mr Schweitzer said.

The technology had been tested in Farra’s workshop and dismantling would start today. The first two containers would be shipped to Australia before Easter, followed by another two, and the BMUs would be assembled by a partner firm in Australia.

Prior to the unit being dismantled, Farra invited school pupils and tertiary students to visit its workshop to see the engineering feat. Proud of what it had achieved, it was "quite impressive" to have created it in Dunedin, Mr Schweitzer said.

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