A new A$65 million development in the heart of Melbourne will be the first new office building in Melbourne for 8 years.

The building, located at 11 Exhibition Street, is being developed by the Commonwealth Property Fund. It's now part of the adjacent 101 Collins Street complex and has already attracted prestigious tenants such as the Mercer Group, which has committed to a 10 year lease of 10,000 square metres of space. The Australian Industrial Relations Commission has also committed to a 12 year lease for six floors of the building.

Designed by architects Bates Smart, the 18 storey building will have large open floors with views to the river and beyond, extensive tenant parking, and street level cafes and restaurants. It is currently being constructed by leading Australian construction company, Grocon.

Due for completion at the end the year, the concrete framed building measures over 1,000 square metres per floor, and has an innovative form of steel formwork incorporated into its structural design, LYSAGHT BONDEK BLUE®.

Developed by leading steel building solutions provider, BlueScope Lysaght, LYSAGHT BONDEK® is the original steel formwork system that revolutionised concrete construction. A highly efficient, versatile, and robust product, the permanent formwork system replaces bottom reinforcement in most applications, resulting in significant savings in labour, time and cost. Suitable for domestic, industrial and commercial building applications, LYSAGHT BONDEK® is quick and easy to install, and has a full range of accessories for slab edge formwork, and suspension of services and ceilings without drilling into concrete slab.

BONDEK BLUE® is the latest development in the LYSAGHT® range, featuring what is believed to be a world first innovation and incorporating all the benefits of LYSAGHT BONDEK®. Its blue anti-glare coating reduces reflected light by a minimum of 80 percent, which means greater comfort for installers and follow up trades on site. A further benefit of LYSAGHT BONDEK BLUE® is that the blue coating is placed only in the pan of the decking, between each rib. This increases rib definition, and results in a safer environment for walking on the deck.

BlueScope Lysaght's Senior Design Engineer, Con Papageorgiou says, "We produced LYSAGHT BONDEK BLUE® in response to industry concern about glare, when working with steel formwork. It's a simple idea, but it's taken a lot of work to develop the technology and get the right product, the right colour, and the right consistency in application on site. But what it means is that we are reducing reflected light or glare by about 80 percent, and reducing heat. It's becoming an industry standard in Victoria".

About 20,000 square metres of LYSAGHT BONDEK BLUE® will be used on 11 Exhibition Street. Aside from supplying the product, BlueScope Lysaght was also instrumental in providing optimal structural design solutions for the project.

Con Papageorgiou explains, "We were involved in the project design from the start, we were looking at solutions even before Grocon were appointed. Initially there were two possibilities with the design of 11 Exhibition Street, either concrete or steel frame. We offered a design solution for both options. In many ways, it's a stab in the dark, because you don't know who the end user is going to be and what their needs are. Once Grocon came on board, we had more specific information, we could tailor our solution to meet their needs".

"There were two main advantages of using LYSAGHT BONDEK BLUE® on the project," says Con. "Firstly, while the LYSAGHT BONDEK BLUE® acts as permanent formwork reducing labour and material handling of stripping formwork, it's also locking into the concrete and acting as bottom reinforcement, so you use less reinforcement, saving time and money."

"Secondly, the framing system used to form the concrete band beams has incorporated additional supports either side of the beam table form, allowing LYSAGHT BONDEK BLUE® to free-span between adjacent tables. This eliminates the need for intermediate propping, reducing material handling and providing earlier access for services. All this impacts on labour and how quickly you can move from floor to floor. It's actually contributing to reducing the cycle time, so the building gets built faster."

S & J Formwork is installing all the formwork for the project. General Manager of S & J Formwork, Peter Martin, is impressed with LYSAGHT BONDEK BLUE®. "LYSAGHT BONDEK BLUE® has been extremely successful in increasing the comfort level of our formworkers during the summer. We lose less time as the temperature rises and we have received appreciative comments from our layers and following trades who place reinforcement, post tensioning cables, electrical conduits, services penetrations and concrete."

"It is a tremendous advancement to OH&S," adds Peter. "We'll continue using it in the future."

Steve Coker, Grocon's Construction Manager for the 11 Exhibition Street project agrees. "LYSAGHT BONDEK BLUE® has minimised labour onsite. It also minimises the need to relocate formwork. We think that the combination of table forms for the band beams providing the propping for the LYSAGHT BONDEK BLUE® is definitely the optimal solution. It's all about efficiency, and optimising the onsite labour component. If you can reduce the amount of formwork you need to handle, you can reduce construction time."

According to Steve, the building was originally designed as a steel framed building. "It was converted to a reinforced concrete building, so we've done a fair bit of design development to arrive at this current solution," he says. "It's working well, precast columns, conventional reinforced concrete post tension band beams and LYSAGHT BONDEK BLUE® formed slabs between the band beams."

"Grocon has worked in very close collaboration with BlueScope Lysaght on this and other projects," adds Steve. "On this project, they've helped us with optimising slab configurations and spans, we've used LYSAGHT BONDEK BLUE® in fairly interesting ways. This is not the first project in which we've used their technical expertise to arrive at an optimal structural solution. Probably most of our projects in Melbourne over the last 10 years have had some technical input from BlueScope Lysaght."