Innovative plumbing for engineered timber buildings
Daramu House, an innovative, all-wooden building in Sydney’s Barangaroo.
A shared kitchen and dining space within the building.
The Sanicom 2 enabled the installation of kitchenettes and coffee stations.
Partner content: When sustainable timber construction proves a challenge for installing conventional plumbing, Saniflo’s range of grey water pumps and lifting stations provides the ideal solution.
A recently completed building in Sydney has been turning heads for its unique design and environmentally friendly features. Daramu House is made entirely out of wood, a material that is once again seeing a rise in popularity due to its significant advantages, particularly for the environment. Timber is a strong, renewable material, which reduces biodiversity loss, is more sustainable in terms of embodied energy and greenhouse gas emissions than concrete or steel, and provides opportunities for climate change mitigation through a process of carbon sequestration.
Solely using an environmentally friendly material such as timber isn’t without its challenges – one of which is the need to limit core drilling, which may compromise or degrade the integrity of the wooden structure. As a result, complications can arise when the building needs plumbing to its wet areas.
In this project, each space was leased and the various lessee businesses had different amenity requirements. The hydraulic engineering team recommended that the developer design each floor of the multi-storey timber building to accommodate the individual clients’ preferred wet area locations.
To overcome the issue of core drilling, the team behind Sydney’s new wooden building contacted Saniflo, who they had worked with previously and who they knew would provide reliable, high-quality products.
Saniflo recommended the Sanicom 2, a commercial grey water lifting station that features two powerful motors. With Sanicom 2, the architects had the design flexibility to place wet areas wherever they wanted, with the knowledge that plumbing would be possible. The Sanicom 2 allows the installation of bathroom and kitchen fixtures, including a hand basin, bath, shower, washing machine, dishwasher and kitchen sink, which was ideal for the wet area flexibility that this project desired.
The hydraulic engineering team built in the basic plumbing lines, enabling each lessee business to locate bathroom, kitchen or toilet facilities wherever they chose.
The result is an architecturally impressive and practical multi-storey timber building, complete with all desired amenities.
ArchitectureNow works with a range of partners in the A&D supply sector to source appropriate content for the site. This article has been supported by Saniflo.
