Monash University, 343 Parkville Redevelopment

The buildings at 343 Royal Parade were originally constructed in the 1960s and 1990s and occupied by CSIRO for decades. Monash University is transforming them into a 6,800 m² research facility for the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, including PC2-certified laboratories across three levels. The project involves stripping the buildings back to their structure, a complete internal renovation and a new facade.

Austral Contractors was engaged by City Circle Group to carry out the structural demolition and penetration works from Level 5 down to Ground Floor.

Stripping a six-decade-old laboratory building back to bare frame is unlike demolishing one outright. The structure has to survive intact — every slab, column and core that stays becomes part of the finished building. Working top-down from Level 5, we used robotic demolition to take out redundant structure at a controlled rate, with the operator working remotely away from the face rather than a crew working hand tools in dust and noise at height.

Around that, the cutting package opened the building up for its new use:

• Wire sawing and wall sawing for floor and wall penetrations — new voids for lifts, stairs, risers and the substantial mechanical services a PC2 laboratory demands
• Pocket cutting to columns, forming recesses for the structural strengthening the building needed to meet current standards
• Core drilling throughout for new hydraulic, electrical and mechanical services
• Road sawing to define cut lines and break down slab sections for removal

Sawing rather than breaking mattered on every one of these. A 1960s frame being retained and strengthened cannot absorb percussive loading, and every penetration had to land exactly where the engineer drew it, with clean edges the new works could tie into. Nothing was overbroken and nothing needed making good.

Kane Constructions is delivering the project under a design and construct head contract, with completion expected by 2027.