Attracting and maintaining staff in remote locations can be difficult. Long hours away from loved ones, lack of facilities and little to do when the sun goes down makes the fly-in fly-out lifestyle of many mining and resource industry workers unattractive. Considering these, Manigurr-Ma Village, whose master plan and concept design was developed by AECOM, put a unique twist on staff accommodation.
Construction management company JKC Australia LNG Pty Ltd wanted a different experience for construction workers building the onshore facilities of the Ichthys LNG Project, which is a Joint Venture between INPEX group companies (the Operator), major partner Total and the Australian subsidiaries of Tokyo Gas, Osaka Gas, Chubu Electric Power and Toho Gas.
With housing in strong demand in the Top End, the project envisioned an on-site worker accommodation village that not only offered a comfortable respite from daily construction work, but a place to call home.
We delivered the master planning and concept design of the Manigurr-Ma Village through to construction documentation and contract administration under design and construct (D&C) delivery through an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract.
The idea was to help attract and retain resource workers in the region, so the Village was designed to high standards of accommodation. Its urban design includes tropical courtyard buildings, green space corridors, breezeways for access and passive recreation, landscape zones and parks, and the central service and recreation facilities at its heart. Water usage for irrigation was maximised with extensive use of native plants and mulching of large open areas throughout the Village, with additional design elements to reduce traffic and noise while improving safety. Residents also have access to after-hours activities like swimming, cycling, beach volleyball and indoor cricket to improve and maintain their health and fitness.
The result? A stylish, innovative and sustainable accommodation village for 3,500 workers — the first of its kind in a major Australian city and a design that won the State Commendation Award for Urban Design in the 2014 Northern Territory Architecture Awards.