Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

I have had some technical issues with my work lap top which has stopped linking to the internet and the work internet protocols not allowing me to get on the word press portal. After a couple of packets of biscuits to the NDY IT guru he has solved the issue and put me on a different internet to everyone else!!

Frederick Irwin Anglican School New Chapel, Mandurah.

The NDY experience, the first project which I have been working on is a heat load calculation for a chapel in Mandurah which is an hour south of Perth, so very similar dry and wet bulb conditions to Perth.

The Chapel is a very modern design as can be seen from the images below. The volume of air within the space is extremely large due to the high ceilings, which architecturally most chapels have the same features, however the building fabric of the UK chapel is very different to here due to the potential of thermal energy being built up during the day and stored over night because the temperature differential is not sufficient enough for it to be rejected. The resultant is lighter building fabric which heat up quicker but can also reject heat at a fast rate also.

The heat load calculation was completed using a stratification methodology therefore only cooling from floor level to 3m and the remaining airspace heat being exhaust at the zenith. This was fairly straight forward however the program which NDY use TRACE does not have any modelling capability so its quite difficult to see if you have all the geometry correct. The next challenge was dealing with an architect which did not understand for a building to be functional it requires some mechanical cooling and the space which was allocated was vastly too small, so after doing 10 different designs demonstrating that the space was too small we finally came to an agreement. I believe architects here are still 10 years behind and drawing pretty pictures and have no idea of safety in design or engineers working in conjunction with architects!

Karratha Quarter, Karratha.

Karratha Quarter is a combination of residential, office space and amenities. Karratha is in the North of Western Australia, as can be seen from the image below and this has a very different envirnoment compared to Perth. The main work which I completed for this was checking tender documents, this was for all disciplines which has given me a broad spectrum of experience. This task was meant to be completed by Christmas and this is something which I have noticed since I have been with NDY is that dead lines are often missed and there seems little structure in the company on who controls which projects. The result generally is people being dragged from one job to another and being very ineffective.

Capital Square Tower 1, Perth.

Using my experience from site running BIM model clash detection meetings I have been asked to do the clash detection for all the services for tower 1 of Capital Square a new river side development. This is initially completed with a clash detection run by a program called Navis works, then me looking at all individual clashes and coming up with a solution which I feed back to the Revit 3D modellers. This is done in an iterative process completing all the clashes for Hydraulics initially especially drainage, then Mechanical etc etc. This is a long process but one which I can directly influence design and ensure the model reflects something which can be built which I have experienced first hand from Perth Children’s Hospital.

Life outside of work.

I have last minute been called up to do the Rottenest Swim as part of a team which is a 21km swim from Cottesloe beach to Rottenest Island, which is going to be a serious challenge with limited training, I also have swimming State championships coming up and then Hannah and I are off to Hobart, Tasmania for the swimming National Championships. So keeping fit and wet!