Spirit of Tasmania – Passenger Terminal Building

THE PROJECT  /

The relocation of the Spirit of Tasmania’s Victorian operations from Port Melbourne to Corio Quay was a major development, resulting in the construction of a new passenger terminal building, a vehicle marshalling area for 600 cars, a parking area for 150 semi trailers, crew accommodation, a café and a children’s play area.

The new passenger terminal was purpose-designed with contemporary facilities for travellers’ comfort and overall experience.

The terminal featured a large cranked internal ceiling with multiple angles across the face along with a 7m cavity between the roof and ceiling structure. The ceiling needed to be seismically engineered for earthquake events and achieving this using traditional on-site methods was proving very difficult without the use of structural steel.

THE CORTEK STEEL FRAMING SOLUTION /

Combining high tensile strength steel, and past experience with complex architectural designs, the Cortek team achieved a lightweight pre-fabricated dropper and panel system without the need for any secondary structure.

The design was developed to perform seismically with specific methods of bracing and connections within the dropper layout.

As a result of these innovations, the builder and contractors saved valuable on site construction time, and costs associated with eliminating the structural steel requirement.

In the words of the client:

We thank Cortek for their outstanding contributions to our recent project, SOT (Spirit of Tasmania), Corio for Kane Constructions.

Cortek’s modular panel system minimised materials onsite i.e. reductions in drop and down strut supports, increasing spans significantly (approx. 20%), while incorporating seismic requirements. This also led to a remarkable 30% reduction in our on site installation crew size by replacing heavy gauge conventional framing and solving the seismic restraints.

Cortek’s unwavering commitment to excellence in project engineering specialisation and operational efficiency is unmatched.

For more information, watch the Project Case Study Video: