Pullman Hotel façade removal

Accelerated Concrete Sawing worked in with Built to remove the existing concrete parapet façade from the Pullman Hotel in east Melbourne to enable a 15-storey extension of the hotel to be built over the existing building.

The works involved cutting off over 60 LM of concrete parapet wall in 4.3-tonne sections while it was suspended on the hook of a 60-tonne crane situated in the loading bay below the works. Accelerated Concrete Sawing provided all methodologies and engineering for works, installation of protection scaffolding, handrailing, and removal of concrete from site.

Due to 300mm of concrete slab having to be removed along with the parapet, the sequencing of works included coring lifting holes, hand sawing parapet wall, attaching crane to parapet wall, and finally, road sawing concrete slab behind the section of parapet suspended by a crane. All coordinated to ensure no operators were exposed to live edges during work.

Slab removal for new lift shaft

Accelerated Concrete Sawing worked in with Built to remove the existing concrete slab from the podium level of the existing building to enable a 15-storey extension of the hotel to be built over the existing building.

Sections of slabs were cut into 3-tonne blocks, and a “Monkey Fist” lifting device was used to lift all blocks from the podium level down to the loading bay for removal from the site. The “Monkey Fist” is simply inserted into a 50mm core hole which it expands in to enable it to lift the concrete block. This reduces the risk of injury to riggers as chains do not need to be fed in underneath concrete blocks and linked together above the back propping.

All back propping and engineering were coordinated by Accelerated Concrete Sawing, along with the sawing works. For this particular job, Built enabled the use of their Favco crane for the removal of the concrete blocks from the podium level.