Refurbishments for the Australian army

Australian army school, the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in the Australian Capital Territory, was undergoing building refurbishment works as part of the Defence Estate Works Programme.

JLL undertook these works under Augility, which is a major contractor under the programme.

Works were to take place across eight different buildings, including offices, accommodation buildings, a pool chlorine storeroom and a heritage school building.

The refurbishments entailed carpet replacement, painting, a heating ventilation air conditioning (HVAC) upgrade, re-sealing the chlorine storeroom floor, a bathroom refurbishment and roof sheeting replacement.

RMC Duntroon plays an important role in the training of Defence cadets and had to remain fully operational throughout the refurbishment works.

By keeping open lines of communication with stakeholders we were able to achieve this, ramping it up as we discovered some unforeseen conditions.

The refurbishment works led to the discovery of hazardous materials, termites, and a wasps’ nest. One office building required an extensive HVAC upgrade, but the existing structural drawings were outdated. As a result, undocumented concrete slabs were discovered in the ceiling while other concrete slabs were discovered to be too thin to support the HVAC units. The HVAC system had to be re-designed to accommodate these conditions.

The original scope in one of the two-storey accommodation buildings was to re-paint the timber windows, but the existing lead paint was flaking badly. We agreed with the client to replace the windows with double-glazed windows instead. The obvious benefit was reducing heat loss in the bedrooms during Canberra’s cold winters. But there would also be an improvement in indoor air quality due to the removal of hazardous materials which are typically found in single-glazed timber windows in Canberra.

The Australian Defence Force is increasingly focused on attracting and retaining new cadets. These refurbishment works to RMC Duntroon will support this goal by providing long-needed upgrades particularly to the cadets’ accommodation.