Grasso Consulting Engineers
Forty years of structures, on the way down and on the way up. The lists below are drawn from Jim Grasso’s project record; photographs of notable projects are being added.
Demolition engineering
Structural advice on the demolition of more than 50 major buildings and structures, from high-rise towers to racecourse roofs. Scope ranged from demolition methodology to façade retention, slab propping and shoring design.
AMP Building, Circular Quay (48 storeys) · State Office Block (36) · Westpac, 60 Martin Place (32) · RTA Building, Milsons Point (22) · 157 Liverpool Street (22) · Goodsell Building, Chifley Square (22) · 33 Bligh Street (22) · 14 College Street (20) · 333 George Street (20) · 26 O’Connell Street (19) · 71 Macquarie Street (18) · 280 George Street (17) · 2–6 Bligh Street (five buildings, 8 to 22 storeys) · 163 Castlereagh Street · 400 George Street · Commonwealth Bank Building, Martin Place · Premier’s Wing (9) · 355 Kent Street (7) · 225 Miller Street, North Sydney · 38 Akuna Street, Canberra · and dozens of other office buildings in the CBD and suburbs.
Sydney Hilton, including a 6 m deep post-tensioned transfer beam · Royal Randwick, the post-tensioned balanced-cantilever segmental box girder roof of the QEII and Paddock grandstands · 157 Liverpool Street, 22 storeys of post-tensioned floors · Warragamba Dam cableways and trestle towers · 147 Castlereagh Street, securing and safe dismantling of a collapsed scaffold · a 75 m chimney at Viridian Glass · Harold Park Paceway, post-tensioned elevated structure over the canal · Darling Harbour multilevel post-tensioned carpark.
Westfield Sydney (Centrepoint, Skygarden and Imperial Arcade) · Westfield Bondi Junction · Stockland Merrylands · Mid City Centre, Pitt Street · the old Anthony Hordern’s building · Darling Harbour Convention, Exhibition and Entertainment Centres · Star City Casino · Sydney Conservatorium of Music · Carlton United Brewery, Broadway · Royal Prince Alfred, Royal North Shore, St Vincent’s, Concord Repatriation, Wollongong and Penrith hospitals.
Demolition of a 75-metre, 4-metre-diameter reinforced concrete chimney stack, two 40-metre steel stacks and two process reactors inside a working refinery. Grasso designed an adjustable steel lifting cradle to remove the chimney in 20-tonne cut segments with a 400-tonne crane, and a second cradle that let the 200-tonne and 60-tonne reactors be lifted off their supports and turned 90 degrees in mid-air. Completed without incident.
Bridges
More than 20 bridges demolished across New South Wales and Queensland since 2004: steel truss, steel girder, concrete arch, post-tensioned box girder and plank bridges, over railways, rivers and live motorways.
| Year | Bridge | Structure |
|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Auburn Road, Auburn | Three-span concrete arch bridge over the rail line |
| 2006 | Help Street and Victoria Avenue, Chatswood | Rail bridges at Chatswood station |
| 2006 | Dean Street, Albury | Bridge demolition |
| 2007 | Thirroul | Concrete arch road bridge over the rail line |
| 2008 | Turramurra and Epping stations | Precast post-tensioned pedestrian bridges |
| 2009 | Croobyar Creek and Conjola Creek | Two bridge demolitions on the South Coast |
| 2009 | Tourle Street, Newcastle | 7 × 50 m steel truss road bridge over the Hunter River |
| 2009 | Bonds Road, Narwee | Steel girder rail bridge |
| 2010 | M2 overbridge, Beecroft | Six-span post-tensioned box girder bridge over the M2 |
| 2011 | East Hills line, Padstow | Three road bridges over the railway, for the KQR Alliance |
| 2019 | Lake Forbes, Forbes | Nine-span precast girder bridge and footbridge, Camp Street |
| 2020 | Oxley Creek, Ipswich Motorway, Qld | Three-span post-tensioned plank bridge and overflow bridge, Rocklea to Darra upgrade |
| 2023 | M1 at Logan Road, Springfield, Qld | Two three-span post-tensioned multi-box-girder bridges (BR7, BR10) lifted out with a 450 t crane in night works |
Also: demolition of the Sydney Monorail stations and elevated track; capacity check of the Pyrmont Bridge timber trusses for crane loads while the monorail was dismantled; bridge jacking to counter mining subsidence at Tahmoor.
Temporary works
We design and certify the temporary structures that construction and demolition depend on.
Design and certification of modular climbing screens and formwork structures.
Retention structures that hold a heritage façade while the building behind it is taken down and rebuilt.
Falsework and scaffolding design, and slab propping through demolition and construction.
Shoring and anchoring design for excavations and retained structures.
Cradles and rigging engineering for cut-and-lift demolition and for plant up to 200 tonnes.
Infrastructure and industrial
Tunnels, water, power, mining and rail.
Engineering on the Sydney Harbour Tunnel project.
Filter blocks for water filtration plants of 216 megalitres a day, and six steel-framed facilities buildings.
Copeton Dam hydroelectric station, the Smithfield cogeneration facility and a BHP power station in New Zealand.
A coal processing facility in the Hunter Valley, and bridge jacking for mining subsidence at Tahmoor.
Design verification for the demolition of buildings on Hunter, Elizabeth and Castlereagh Streets.
A 75 m stack cut and lifted out in 20-tonne pieces, a 60-tonne box girder at Carlton United Brewery, and reactors to 200 tonnes.
Structural design
Apartment buildings up to 18 storeys, offices to 24, and hundreds of new homes, additions and alterations, and swimming pools across Sydney and the Central Coast.
Project owners
Owners and developers of the projects we have worked on, from public records. Grasso’s role on each was structural engineering, in most cases engaged through the demolition contractor.
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