The
Olympic Dam Expansion Project is located in an extremely remote and arid area of
Central Australia on the site of an existing copper and uranium mine and
processing plant. Jackson Lane Pty Ltd was engaged by Bechtel Pacific as specialist
consultant to the project to develop a concept for the new central control
building consolidating individual plant area control rooms and to assist with
design of other plant buildings including engineering offices, change houses and
laboratories. On completion of the conceptual design we
were engaged directly by Western Mining Corporation as design project managers
and architects for the detailed design of the central control building. We were responsible for building design work in all engineering
disciplines as well as for construction support services. The centralised control building will accommodate all instrumentation
systems for monitoring and control of both mining and processing activities at
the site. The building’s HVAC system is interfaced with a complex fire and gas
detection system to initiate isolation and secure running in the event of
external contamination from the process area. An important feature of the design was the requirement to maximise
off-site work by prefabricating the building in modular components to reduce
construction labour costs in the remote site location.
3D rendered images of the control room interior
were produced in the early design stage to give management and plant operators a
realistic idea of their working environment. A comparison of the computer generated image and a photograph of the
completed control room is shown above.
