Howard Springs quarantine facility

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.

 

Awards

State commendation award for Urban Design –  2014 Northern Territory Architecture Awards

 

ABA Grocery Stores

The remote Indigenous communities of Papunya and Haasts Bluff in Australia’s Northern Territory have long been reliant on a small local store for their supplies.

Inadequate dry storage and refrigeration, however, meant fresh produce was expensive and hard to come by. So too was qualified staff to manage the fully-equipped grocery store, due to the lack of appropriate accommodation and rental properties in the area.

The Commonwealth Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (formerly the Department of Families, Housing Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA)) is driving a program to construct and refurbish grocery stores and staff accommodation in 18 of the remote communities in the Northern Territory.

The project is funded through the Aboriginal Benefits Account (ABA) which is an account established to receive and distribute royalty equivalent monies on Indigenous land in the Northern Territory.

The ABA aims to provide each community with a properly-run food store with good, healthy food available in accordance with the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory Act 2012.

The new stores will be operated by qualified staff, and costs will be minimised through standard practice store design. Some of the new stores will also be provided with new or upgraded fuel facilities.

AECOM was engaged by FaHCSIA in 2012 through Davis Langdon, an AECOM Company, as the management and design consultant for the project.  We provided project management, and design and cost management services,  including contract and construction management.

Our team worked with community stakeholders, including local indigenous store committees and all levels of Territory and Federal Government agencies, to keep the project on track.

The first new stores – Haasts Bluff and Papunya – opened in November 2014 in the central desert region, 3 hours’ drive west of Alice Springs.

Department of Lands and Planning

AECOM has undertaken an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) for the proposed expansion of the Department of Lands and Planning East Arm Wharf. The project included technical studies, desktop review, EIS documentation, public consultation and supplementary reporting. The multi-disciplinary Darwin-based AECOM team demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the marine and terrestrial environments within the region, as well as understanding the relevant environmental issues.