Interviewer: Frank Heimans,
            for Baulkham Hills Shire Council

Date of Interview: 1 June 2007

Transcription: Kevin Murray, July 2007

Nick, for people who want to know a little bit about you and your background, can you tell us where and when you were born, first.

I was born in Sydney and I grew up in Maraylya, just outside Rouse Hill, on a small 35 acre block with my family. We've got 5 boys and 2 girls - that was a big family living on a block of land out there. I grew up on a farm with lots of animals out there and went to a local school at Castle Hill - Oakhill College. From Oakhill, worked for a couple of years and then eventually went to University at Hawkesbury and did a construction management course out there.

When you were living on the farm, where you grew up, what sort of animals were there? What sorts of activities did the family engage in?

It was a hobby farm. We weren't making any money out of it. My father is a doctor working at Westmead Hospital and he enjoyed having a life outside the hospital, so we had draught horses, cows, ducks, sheep, geese, lots of dogs and a few cats - anything you could think of he wanted to have on the farm.

What sort of a doctor? General Practitioner at the hospital? or specialised?

He's the Director of Emergency Medicine. He'd been in that role for a good 25 years - he's been there for a long time.

So for him it was a way of relieving some of the tension on the weekend and doing something with his hands, was it?

Yeah. He'd spend most of the weekend working on the farm or, because it was such a large family, extending the house - he extended the house about 3 or 4 times, as everyone got bigger and the house became too cramped.

What do you remember doing on the farm? What sorts of chores did you have?

Did a lot of chopping wood for the fire. A lot of cooking on the external barbecue. A lot of taking care of animals - we used to get animals for birthday presents. For two years in a row I got a little calf for a birthday present. They were trying to teach me a lesson on how to maintain an animal, have some responsibility.

That's great growing up isn't it... lots of freedom. Now, after you did your degree at Oakhill College, what kind of offerings were there for you in terms of a job or career?

Straight out of school I didn't really know what I wanted to do, so I ended up spending a couple of years just in a wilderness - working for different people, just getting an idea of what I wanted to do, so it was originally planned to be a year off, but ended up being two years off, working in different areas such as house building, worked in a local metalwork factory, worked for a local pre-cast contract company. Just settling into understanding what I wanted to do. There were a few people influencing me on a career path. My brothers had already been into the building industry - one's an electrician, one's a plumber. And neither of them wanted me to do a trade. They were influencing me on doing a management course, because they could see that the guys that they were working for, the managers on building sites, were where they wanted to end up. So they probably had a big influence on the selection of the Uni degree that I went into.

What was the degree you did?

It was a Construction Management course at Western Sydney. The course was based around practical knowledge that you might need to manage multiple tasks on a construction site, so it covers structural engineering, civil engineering type subjects as well as the services type of subjects - electrical... just getting a broad background of all the different types of trades you might come up with on a construction site, and no specific information on any of them.

An overview type of course was it?

Yeh. And there was also a mixture in that of management and a few commercial subjects as well.

Did you enjoy it, that course?

I did enjoy the course, I enjoyed the fact that it had a large practical component to it, where you had to work in the industry while you were doing the course. Each year there were more hours committed to doing practical works... they had to find employment just to actually pass the course, there was a certain requirement for certain hours that you had to do. I think that really benefits the course.

Where did you go for your work practice?

I worked for my brother, who is an electrician, did a bit of work for him and did a bit of work for the builders he was working for. They generally did house extensions, traveled around doing house extensions. They were on the Central Coast, the North Shore, sometimes they were in the Blue Mountains. I also went back to the guys I had been working for in the two years gap between school and University... I went back and worked for the pre-cast contract company in Riverstone.

So after you finished all that degree and work practice, what opportunities were there for you, workwise?

I was fortunate enough to have one of my mates at Uni already pick up a job with Lend Lease while we were at Uni, so in the final year of University a project started called Aurora Place, in Sydney, designed by a famous Italian architect called Renzo Piano. So that job was starting in my final year and I got the chance to go to that project as a Services Engineer and look after the mechanical, fire, electrical and hydraulics contractors there. It was a big opportunity for me. It was a great start to my career, because it was a very high profile building.

It's a great building, isn't it?

Mmm.

So, having got that under your belt, did Lend Lease offer you any further opportunities?

Straight away they offered me some travel... I went from Aurora Place to a job in Perth, which was a completely different experience. Perth at the time was heavily influenced by the Unions, and was quite different to working in the environment of Sydney. There was a presence from the Unions every day of the week, and they really did influence how we constructed, how many people were on site... they dictated that we'd have a certain amount of construction workers cleaning the site. It was an interesting experience on the different building construction industries around the country.

So the Unions are obviously a bit more powerful in Perth than they are here?

Yeh, I don't think the Unions in New South Wales would like to hear me say that, but they certainly manage the builders a little bit differently.

Now, when were you first approached to work on The New Rouse Hill project?

From Perth I moved to a couple of Shopping Centres - I did a Shopping Centre at Erina (Erina Fair), and I did a Shopping Centre at Macarthur (Macarthur Square), and through that I think it was logical because I'd had two jobs under my belt that were retail orientated, that I'd be approached to do Rouse Hill. I originally was offered it in probably May 2005 while I was working down at Macarthur Square, but I didn't eventually start on the project until March 2006 when we first started moving earth out there, on site.

Maintaining a safe site has been our number one priority (March 2007)

Were you involved in many discussions about the project before you actually went on site?

I was involved in the planning of how the site was to be set up, the team structure, how many people and resources we might need, and who those resources were. Being on two retail projects previously, I had a good exposure to engineers, foremen that we might like to use at Rouse Hill. And the benefit of those two projects allowed us to select the cream of the crop, I suppose, and bring them all to Rouse Hill so it was a successful project.

Did you have any input into the design as well?

Yes. With my experience on the two retail jobs there's a lot of things that went wrong on those two projects that I was back fixing. I didn't want to be in that position again at Rouse Hill, so certainly there's lots of durability issues that I'm involved in in terms of construction, so I'm not returning to rectify things that I've learnt from in previous years. So my focus on the design is not trying to change what the architect is drawing, but to make sure that what is drawn will survive the test of the public walking through the environment and not get damaged and require a replacement once we've finished.

So does that mean you actually had an input into the choice of materials such as the paving, that kind of thing?

Yeh. I have had a huge influence on some of the materials, and have done a lot of durability tests on materials such as the paving out at Rouse Hill. Spent a lot of time, going through with the suppliers on the durability of that product and how it was to be laid, how it was to be treated after it was installed, and the best methodology of installing it to ensure that I don't have tiles popping up, or cracking during construction, so my previous knowledge comes into play there.

So what was the quality of tiles chosen, in the end?

Originally we specified a 15mm Bluestone tile. I ended up changing that to a 30mm Bluestone tile, just for durability. We tested the 15mm under numerous loads and did a prototype on the site, testing with plant material that I might use, such as scissor lifts, Manitou, and I even put a 30 tonne crane on top of the test sample just to see if the tiles would crack under that sort of pressure. They held up reasonably well, and I also did some factory testing, and the end result resulted in a 30mm tile being selected, because of durability issues.

Now, how large is this New Rouse Hill site? And what will Stage 1 contain in it?

The Town Centre is approximately 500 metres by 500 metres and that's with a surrounding perimeter road, a pond, a large pond area, landscaping of the perimeter roads and the internal roads, and it has 5 main anchor retail components, which is a Big W, a Target, a Coles, a Woolworths and a Reading Cinemas. The road network crosses the project and splits it into four separate buildings - or four separate quadrants, as we call them. And each quadrant is anchored by one of those major retailers and the specialty retail comes off the back of those major retailers.

Right, so this is the Town Centre we're talking about now? That's Stage 1, is it?

Stage 1 is the Town Centre. There's also a component that Delphin Lend Lease is involved in which personally I'm not involved in which is the residential component which surrounds the Town Centre. The Town Centre has a residential component of units sitting above the Town Centre which I am involved in, but, yeh, the Stage 1 also contains some residential housing which I'm not too involved in.

Logistics of such a large site posed challenges (March 2007)

So what are the challenges posed by this particular site, then?

Really it's the lot of logistics issues we've had, because it's such a large site and we've got a relatively short time to construct it, we've had to be very strategic in how we've brought on sub-contractors, size and scope of those sub-contractors, and we've had to be careful to ensure that the site was set up in a way that when sub-contractors did enter the site it was a controlled environment, it was a safe environment and people weren't exposed to injuring themselves which has been a key focus on the project. Lend Lease has introduced an initiative a number of years ago called Injury and Incident Free, and the focus on that is to change the mentality of every individual on site and create a culture that promotes safety and getting it into everybody's head that they're responsible for the safety of themselves and the safety of each other around them. We've done a number of initiatives to help that process along. One notable one would be we have a number of apprentices on site because there's such a large number of sub-contractors, and we run an apprentice training for introduction to the industry sessions. That involves about 5 sessions with a group of a dozen apprentices that might be on the site, and we bring in influences from the construction industry, such as Lend Lease OH&S Officers or Managers. We bring in the Site Manager from the site to explain to them about this site and different sites they might come across. And we also bring in representatives from the sub-contractors such as electricians and formworkers, the main supervisors, just so you might have an apprentice who is a plumber, he doesn't really get involved in what an electrician does, but it's an opportunity to explain to an apprentice plumber the dangers of the electrical trade, potentially and the dangers of a formwork trade. So they get a more grounded view of what's involved on a construction site - get exposed to different areas other than their own trade that they've been trained in.

Well that's a good idea. So what's the schedule for completion of Stage 1? When do you expect to complete this first Stage?

We're breaking the Stage up into two stages - the initial first stage is being handed over in September 2007, so it's only 16 weeks away, closing in fast. And the second stage is March 2008. We commenced March 2006, so it's a reasonably quick duration to get the thing trading.

Right, that's very soon, 16 weeks away, isn't it?

Yes it is.

Will you be all right?

Yes, quietly confident. I've been on enough retail projects to know that I'm actually in a very good position for this handover.

Can you describe the size and the composition of the workforce for me?

We average at the moment around 850 personnel on site every day, predominantly they're from sub-contractors that we employ. We'll probably peak at 1,000 to 1,200 when we get shopfitters on board who carry out the individual fitouts of the retail areas. 800 to 900 is probably the peak for the base building sub-contractors that we employ, which is a large number. The typical project that I've been working on in the past we would have probably peaked at around 400, so that gives you some sort of scale of the project. It is very large and we are completing all of the buildings, even though we are handing over the second stage in 2008, a major portion of the work will be finished by the first stage. Logistically, that's the preferred way we need to do it because the perimeter roads need to be finished and we don't need the site looking like a construction site when we first open Stage 1. We want a lot of the work to be done so that when the public starts walking through Stage 1 a lot of the high dangerous trades have left and the public are only exposed to the fitout contractor type works.

What is your position on this project, exactly? What title do you have?

I'm the Construction Manager. Basically I'm in charge of looking after the construction site. From myself I have a site manager who is responsible for looking after the site as well, but basically looking after the site logistics, where my role is looking after the financial, ensuring that we've procured subcontractors, ensuring that the overall project meets a certain program time, cost, quality, safety, is probably in summary what I'm responsible for.

Temporary scaffold in front of the residential building (March 2007)

Right, what a job. Quite a bit of responsibility with that many people on site.

Yes.

How many apprentices are you training to take over, to become foremen, that sort of thing?

Our team is structured so everybody has an opportunity to grow on every project that they do, so this project I've got myself as Construction Manager, I've got a couple of people below me that are Senior Site Engineers that we're hoping will graduate to a Construction Manager role in a couple of years. Below them I've got Project Engineers, Site Engineers, all with different levels of experience, and all hoping to graduate to the next role on the next project. Similarly, on the foreman side, we've got General Foremen who sit under my Site Manager and look after two major areas on the site. Under them we've got a Foreman. Foremen are responsible for either majors or retail areas in the individual quadrants, and under the foremen we've got Leading Hands who are generally given responsibility for retail or major areas. And then under them we've got Apprentices coming through who eventually we hope to follow and get them to finish their apprenticeship leading to Leading Hand roles and then leading to Foreman roles. Hopefully, if they're good enough, they'll become a Site Manager, or even... if they are given an opportunity to do and Engineering-type role or Engineering Supervision role and potentially become Construction Managers as well.

Has there been any problem in recruiting enough people on this particular site, because you're drawing on a helluva lot of people?

Yeh, it's been interesting... the majority of the team that I've developed are new to Lend Lease and there's a real mixture of guys that have been with Lend Lease for a long time. I'm in my ninth year at Lend Lease and a couple of the Senior Foremen would be getting around up to the 12, 15 years. Because of the size of the project, the company just didn't have Project Engineers and Foremen to accommodate every role at Rouse Hill, so we've been on a recruiting campaign and eventually found some very good guys in both areas, in Foremen and Project Engineer roles. Hopefully we can keep them for the next couple of years and get them on the next couple of projects. They've really added value to the project.

We moved around 230,000 sq metres of earth - none of that left the site (March 2007)

Now, can you take me through the various steps in the construction of this project so far? From the moment it started, what was done on site and how it all developed, in order?

We probably initially started the design in May 2005. That design progressed to a point where we could finalise our costs, submit DA's. We commenced in March 2006. There was a large amount of earth to move at that point... we were located on an existing golf course and the topography of that golf course we've tried to maintain in part, but we still moved around 230,000 square metres of earth. None of that left the site, we basically cut-and-fill on the site itself, and just to be able to build the carparks on certain levels we had to shift all that earth. Following the completion of the Civil Works, we did our foundations, carried out the formwork, and then started introducing structural steel. From structural steel we started roofing and placing our facades and more finishes. Every component throughout the development has been on a large scale, starting from the earthworks - moving that much earth is a big task. And when we started formwork we had to engage two fromwork companies because of the size of the formwork package and the timing and how we needed to deliver it. And then we progressed into the trades such as structural steel. We ended up engaging five structural steel companies to ensure that we're delivering on all the areas on all the times. If you walk around the site there's not and area that... typical on a project you might walk around the site and there'll be areas that are quite and not much going on for some times or some periods, but on this site we've managed to break up the scope of works for individual contractors in a way that when you do walk on site you're always hit by someone doing some work, and there's high activity everywhere on the site.

Yeh, I've noticed that. Someone's working everywhere... forklifts are moving this and cranes are doing the other thing... it's amazing. So what would be the environmental aspects of this particular construction site?

When we first started the project there were some targets that Lend Lease and the client set very early... we've been building shopping centres for a while and there was a number of issues that we thought we'd attempt to tackle on this project. There's the energy use. We wanted to set a target of reducing that by 20% on the most recent projects. And water, we targeted to reduce the use of water by 50% as a comparison to the last couple of projects that we've been involved in. We've carried out those initiatives by doing a number of things... We're using the recycled water that is close by to Rouse Hill - there's a treatment plant close by. We recycled the bleed water from the centralised plant and fed it back into the cooling towers. And we used the rainwater coming off the roof also to feed into the cooling towers, the irrigation and the amenities. SO there have been a couple of initiatives. Other initiatives could be the amount of native planting that we've used. 85% of the plants that we're planting around the centre and around the pond area are native to the area, and being native they use less water than some of the other plants that you might typically plant in a shopping centre. And another major initiative has been the use of centralised plant. Typically on a retail project you might have the majors, such as Woolworths and Coles, wanting their own cooling towers and plant. By centralising the cooling towers and chillers, it's an efficient way to deliver what every retailer needs to cool their space, but reduces the amount of water use, because you don't have every individual taking care of their plant, and invariably over time, companies maintain their plant in different ways and by having a central location there's only one point that you need to constantly monitor how much water it's using, how much energy it's using, and as new technology comes on board, you've only got one set of plant to keep up with the times, as it would be.

So, that's one central airconditioning plant for the whole project?

Yeh, the centralised cooling towers and the centralised chillers. Every individual tenancy has fan cooled units. The benefit of fan cooled units is you don't have the air conditioning serving, based on the worst case. Typically, on previous projects, you might have a row of 15 tenancies served off the one air conditioning duct run, and to condition those tenancies we'd have thermostats in the tenancies, and whichever tenancy had the worst temperature, the air conditioning would be set to that worst case. The fan cooled situation allows every tenancy to be conditioned to the individual tenant requirement. By doing that you're reducing the amount of energy - reducing the amount of air conditioning that you supply, because you're not picking the worst case, you're picking the best case for the individual tenancy and efficiently using that energy and that air conditioning to that tenancy.

Right. So you're handing this first stage over in September 2007. What needs to be done before then to complete the project, that particular part of it?

There's a lot that needs to be done. We've only just commenced commissioning all the services. We've successfully got power on a few weeks ago, and that milestone allows a lot of other services to progress - allows us to commence the commissioning of the major plant such as chillers and cooling towers, and the commissioning of the additional infrastructure will follow that, such as water, gas. They're major milestones in terms of services. In terms of the retail space, we've got a lot of work to do in relation to installing all the facades, completing the mall floor finishes, and then the real battle comes a couple of weeks out - generally 6 to 8 weeks from handover, when we get the influx of shopfitters coming to do the individual tenancies. Managing the large number of resources that will land on the site, trying to complete... In the first stage we've got 70 odd specialties plus the two majors, so the logistics of having a number of shopfitters coming in to carry out that work in such a short timeframe will be another big challenge for the project.

Roof had too steep a pitch so the decision was made to build the steel structure on the ground (March 2007)

It's been... we've had a couple of challenges. The logistics of the site has probably been our main challenge. And maintaining a safe site has been our number one priority. We've carried out a number of activities on site to ensure that a safe site has been maintained throughout the whole development.

Once the roof was built a 230 tonne crane picked it up as a unit and placed it on the top of the building (August 2007)

Right, have you had any workplace accidents on the site?

No, we've been fortunate... certainly had a number of small incidents - lost-time injuries, but there've been no major injuries on site.

What are the innovations in water recycling for the project? Like, do you use the grey water from the roof in the underground tanks, that sort of thing?

Yes, we do. We've got a tank that is fed from the roof, and that feeds the irrigation, the amenities, the cooling towers. We've also got the bleed water coming from the cooling towers that is treated and re-used. We've got the recycled water coming off the recycled main from the Rouse Hill treatment plant. We've got a number of water initiatives... the large pond towards the back allows for the stormwater drainage from the surrounding perimeter roads to be contained and treated prior to it leaving site, by giving it an opportunity to settle...

Sediment Pond used during construction (March 2007)

No we're not. Even throughout the construction we built a sediment pond to catch any water that's coming off the open cut area that we're using to develop. That sediment pond has been used during construction... we've used it for the water cast to control dust, and we've certainly stopped any runoff from the site getting into Caddies Creek. We've carried out a number of sediment control initiatives, controlling all the water and the sediment from the construction site.

Are there any innovations in terms of energy use? Electricity, how that's obtained and what will happen to the actual development once it's going. Will there be generation of some sort?

Not at this stage. There is some co-generation infrastructure being included within the residential buildings. That component will allow energy to be fed back into the main power line. Other energy savings have been really brought about by initiatives such as the centralised plant and the efficient use of all the combined services, by reducing the power consumption.

So you've been able to reduce the power consumption during construction from what would normally be, on another project, be higher, would it?

No, certainly during construction power has been a challenge. The Rouse Hill site initially was a long way away from the mains power, which was located at Parklea, so for the first couple of months we were without power, carrying out all our bulk excavation on a few generators. But we quickly got our power feed onto site and started feeding our temporary power.

So, part of the development is a library, which is going to be handed over apparently in 2008. Are you involved in the construction of that, by any chance?

Yes, that's part of the Town Centre development. The library is an interesting building. It's got a very colourful facade, and we're currently installing that facade, installing the roof on the library. It'll be completed for the 2008 second stage opening. It's an exciting space for the Baulkham Hills Shire Council - right in the middle of the Town Centre, and it'll have access to the public that goes through the retail area.