ISPT drives innovation and safety in construction through high-tech tracking technology at VU City Tower

Industry superannuation fund-backed property investor ISPT, has employed a cutting-edge approach to construction to deliver its most recent asset, VU City Tower, a landmark education facility in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD spanning 24,146 sqm NLA across 29 levels (plus 3 levels of car parking) with an end value of $385M.

The tower format is a modern and evolutionary way of delivering a high-density campus on a tight inner-city footprint of 1,943 sqm, which presented a challenging build due to the nature of the site, its location in a bustling pocket of the CBD, as well as the complex design of the façade.

In order to integrate with the existing heritage buildings and immediate surrounding urban massing, the façade has been articulated and folded to create a distinctive form, whereby the mass and shape has been broken to distinguish upper and lower elements to create an offset layering expression, which required enhanced construction methods for delivery.

ISPT co-invested $150,000 with project builder Probuild matching the investment, to develop an end-to-end technology solution from Ynomia, to ensure that the highest calibre of construction techniques were implemented to ensure absolute site safety and efficiency through the course of the build.

The construction systems in place contributed to the project being delivered well under budget and on program despite the unprecedented global pandemic and the impacts of construction industry shutdowns, reaching practical completion in January 2022.

On the build of the project, ISPT Senior Development Manager Jason Lourensz said: “VU City Tower represents a significant step forward in how ISPT approaches its complex builds. We are proud to be leading the way in not only investing in, but also implementing new technology that allows us to deliver safer, more efficient sites."

The technology created for VU City Tower’s build can now be carried across to our future sites and will allow us, and our builder partners, far greater and more precise oversight into key safety measures and materials – which in turn allows us greater control over supply chains and management of suppliers.

“ISPT is committed to ensuring maximum safety on all job sites and we are continually exploring new technologies and partnerships with organisations who are leading innovation for the future of the industry. Our ongoing initiatives provide us with access to invaluable new technologies that only enhance the way in which we operate and align with our vision for ESG excellence, he said.”

The innovative construction systems from Ynomia have been based on CSIRO technology and were implemented to track the installation of façade materials and to enhance site safety; while creating a real-time 3D model of the structure as it was developed, recording the progress of construction, and creating a record of all components built into the building.

The technology utilised on VU City Tower incorporated sensors attached to physical objects, tracking and locating workflows both onsite and offsite, and by automating the workflows around processes onsite to ensure that safety issues were minimised, the critical path was maximised.

Probuild was appointed as the head contractor for the project, delivering the tower ahead of Roberts Co’s acquisition of Probuild’s sites and workforce and without impact from the company entering administration.

With ISPT and Probuild, Ynomia combined three workflows that were seen to be driving the critical path activities and supported the team with crucial information in real time that would typically be in the form of paper-based documentation.

The first workflow monitored on the tower was the tracking of safety screens positioned around the high-rise site through a Bluetooth based tracking system which monitored in real time the open or closed state of the hatches to prevent the risk of falling objects.

The sensors provided real time data that previously hasn’t been captured for a high-risk activity and identified when a section of the building structure was safe enough to allow work to take place; removing a significant component of the time-consuming, manual work to conduct traditional site safety checks, and therefore streamlining efficiencies across the building.

This technology was used as an exemplar new case study by Worksafe and is soon to become best practice within the industry, with the ability to track the safe positioning of individual items significantly de-risking projects and reducing time and resources required.

This commitment to site safety resulted in only one LTI in six years across two successive ISPT developments by Probuild.

The second workflow monitored on the tower was the build of the concrete structure, with sensors embedded into the core and slab elements of each level, the project team was able to track real time information on maturity of concrete as well as progress of the build.

The third core element of the critical path tracking at VU City Tower was the façade supply chain, with technology tracking each individual façade unit from production in China to installation onsite. The tracking provided an end-to-end solution with complete visibility, providing real time data on a process which is typically tracked manually.

Further underpinning ISPT’s commitment to developing new technologies and initiatives, the organisation has maintained a longstanding partnership with real estate technology investor, Taronga Ventures, in its global innovation program RealTechX which is focussed on delivering positive ESG outcomes for the real estate sector.