The Sydney Fish Market – the city’s most important harbour project in decades – is a perfect example of making the impossible, possible. That is according to Gianlugui Traetta and Nicola Leonardelli – from Rubner Timber Engineering – who spoke exclusively to Wood Central about the glulam roof, one of Sydney’s most visible projects under construction.
Speaking from the sidelines of the World Conference on Timber Engineering in Brisbane, Traetta said the roof—the largest for a fish market anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere—was constructed using 1,800 cubic metres of timber, all shipped, preassembled, and assembled in pieces from its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility near the Dolomites in Northern Italy.
“This is one of the most complicated parts of the project. We shipped (594 glulam) parts in 160 packages inside the vessel’s hold, not in containers, with the longest piece 32.7 metres in size (far larger than the 12-metre maximum size of the container). After 8 weeks of transit, the timber arrived at the closest bay (Glebe, not Port Botany), where it was unloaded and taken across on a barge to the site’s harbourside entry.”
Gianlugui Traetta – Sales Manager for Rubner Holzbau GmbH – who spoke to Wood Central’s Jason Ross from the sidelines at the World Conference on Timber Engineering in Brisbane.
According to Leonardelli – who leads Rubner’s Holzbau Sri’s Structural Engineering Team – the decision to preassemble as much as possible allowed crews to assemble the project on-site as fast as possible: “This allowed us to manufacture the timber elements in our factory, importantly, in a controlled environment, which allowed for much better quality on site.”
Last year, Wood Central spoke to Paolo Aschieri, the director of Theca Timber – who has worked with Rubner Timber Engineering to deliver ten projects in the Australian market, who said the roof, which also has 1,000 steel elements, has a unique shape that uses the winds to extract warm air and protect workers from the southerly winds. “The canopy is a blend of wood and steel, designed to be outwardly as porous as possible while blocking direct sunlight and minimising the need for building cooling.”
Designed by 3XN and working with Sydney firms BVN and Aspect Studios, the glulam roof—which clicked into place earlier this year—is part of a $1 billion-plus project being constructed by Multiplex, which will eventually see the new Fish Markets open in time for Christmas.
- To learn more about why Rubner Timber Engineering – one of the world’s largest timber fabricators – is looking to supply Australia with more and more mass timber elements, click here for Wood Central’s exclusive last month.
