In Focus

The show piece of Vaughan Constructions Epping Distribution Centre is a giant stainless steel globe towering above the breezeway. Architectural engineers Ivanoff Design Consultants and its team of subcontractors designed and constructed the globe as well as achieving its successful installation.

Signifying Mainfreight's business of global logistics, the structure consists of a stainless steel and galvanised column supporting a globe of stainless steel tube and pipe. “It’s a big ball on top of the column,” describes Peter Ivanoff, Principal, Ivanoff Design Consultants.

The hollow stainless steel tubes curved to create latitudes and longitudes, contain LED lights to eliminate the globe at night while the equator of the globe consists of inclined stainless steel bands laser cut to read “Mainfreight” when lit.

The primary subcontractors engaged by Ivanoff Design Consultants included structural engineers Lambert and Rehbein, Advanced Fuel Tanks for fabrication of the ball, Future Steel for Bay structure and site fabrication, Smithwell for section rolling and bending, and Custom Cut Metals for laser cutting.

With an overall height of 9.5m, the globe at self measures 3.3m in diameter with the band diameter of 4m. The longitudes feature 50mm diameter tube, the latitudes 32mm diameter and the central column measures 324mm diameter. Completing the affect are 72 LED lights custom made in New Zealand by Virtual Light, Auckland.

Due to the globe’s size, installation was coordinated between Ivanoff Design Consultants and the project engineers who designed the main building structure.

IDC specialise in the complex and out-of-the-ordinary, and apply engineering principles and technology to building design and construction.