ANZ building - LendLease
#9 Rob McGregor, General Foreman, Construction
Rob McGregor, the general foreman at the site where ANZ’s new $512 million headquaters is being built, oversees 500 construction workers, which will swell to 900 at the project’s peak.
From 6am each morning one-time carpenter Rob McGregor is on site at Melbourne’s Docklands where ANZ’s new $512 million, 10-storey headquarters is being constructed by Bovis Lend Lease. Rob, who started a carpentry apprenticeship in 1979 and then became a tradesman for Civil and Civic (which was later acquired by Lend Lease), is the site’s general foreman, making him responsible for all its construction activities. On the Victoria Harbour site he oversees 500 construction workers who are employed by different subcontractors. By November 2008 and into 2009 that number will have swelled to 900.
Environmentally Concious Construction
A large part of Rob’s job is maintaining environmental health and safety for the site and its workers – each morning at 7am he walks through the site to make sure there are no safety or environmental hazards. The environment was a consideration long before the project’s first concrete pile was driven into the bed of the Yarra River in March 2007. “For this project in particular, because it’s on the river, it has always been one of our key focuses to ensure there is no run-off or pollution to the river,” Rob says. In the early planning stages, Bovis Lend Lease decided to set up the site so it drained away from the river, preventing silt or other contaminants from entering. The construction sheds for use by the workers are set up to be energy and water efficient and rainwater captured on the sheds is used for flushing toilets.Building for Sustainability
Rob is enthusiastic about the sustainability measures that have been introduced. “People are now seeing what’s been built into the site and we get the guys asking how we set up the tanks to collect rainwater for flushing the toilets so they can do it at home,” he says. “So the sustainability initiatives have had flow-on effects all the way through to the workers’ own lives.” Now that construction has started, sustainability initiatives specific to the ANZ building have also been introduced. These include river cooling, solar power, black-water recycling, energy trigeneration, stormwater re-use and under-floor air conditioning.