AR-MA was instrumental in the design and detailing of the facade systems for an architectural project that features a unique awning, internal soffit, sloping glazing, and composite entry canopy. This project, located along George St in Sydney's CBD, involved collaboration with FJMT architects, Facade Engineers ARUP, and Empire Glass. The resulting structure boasts an awning and soffit that forms a seamless link between the street, retail, and foyer spaces, adorned with a myriad of aluminium diamonds.
Engaged as part of an early contractor involvement team, AR-MA was tasked with ensuring design resolution, buildability, and engineering input to align with the ambitious architectural intent. This responsibility saw AR-MA develop and maintain a robust parametric model, integrating architectural, engineering, and material constraints into a comprehensive virtual design and construction database. This model was pivotal in producing all details and fabrication files, providing real-time feedback on cost and buildability.The parametric model became the central tool during fabrication and installation. It was used to tag and track each of the 1291 unique custom fabricated aluminium composite panel assemblies from procurement, through the manufacturing processes, to the planning of deliveries and installation.
Given the project's freeform geometry, a novel approach was necessitated for detailing and producing the substructure system connecting the visible panels to the underlying steel structure. AR-MA leveraged mass customisation and a just-in-time methodology for producing unique facade brackets, adjusting for discrepancies between the designed and actual locations of the steel structure. This required AR-MA to integrate large amounts of data from a 3D point cloud survey process into the fully parametric VDC model, resulting in thousands of unique, made-to-measure components. These were prefabricated offsite with digital manufacturing equipment and tolerances, then assembled on site with precise planning and coordination.
