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.
Construction management company JKC Australia LNG Pty Ltd wanted a different experience for those working to construct the onshore facilities of the Ichthys LNG Project in the Northern Territory.
The Ichthys Project 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 village that not only offered a comfortable respite from daily construction work, but a place to call home.
Master planned and designed by AECOM to help attract and retain resource workers in the region, Manigurr-ma Village provides a high standard of accommodation. Its award-winning urban design includes tropical courtyard buildings, green space corridors, landscape zones and parks.
Water usage for irrigation is 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 have access to after-hours activities like swimming, cycling, beach volleyball and indoor cricket to improve and maintain their health and fitness.
The result is a stylish, innovative and sustainable accommodation village – the first of its kind in a major Australian city – and an award-winning design the Ichthys LNG Project can be proud of.
About 850 people are currently able to quarantine at the former Howard Springs mining camp on Darwin’s outskirts. The camp has been renamed the Centre of National Resilience and houses Australians repatriated from overseas. All Australians on Commonwealth facilitated flights into the Northern Territory are required to undertake 14 days of mandatory supervised quarantine at their own cost.
Awards
State commendation award for Urban Design – 2014 Northern Territory Architecture Awards
