Wollondilly Government Services Building

Contractor Kane Constructions
Location: Picton, NSW
Services: Fire Engineering

A new civic hub for the Wollondilly Shire — a four-storey government services building above a basement car park, at the heart of Picton's new Community, Cultural and Civic Precinct.

CORE was engaged by Kane Constructions to deliver the fire engineering for the building, which brings public-facing government services and an administrative workplace together under one roof, alongside a new library and performance arts centre in the wider precinct. The result is a genuinely mixed civic building — public spaces, staff office floors and a basement car park all sharing the one envelope.

That mix, and the open, connected architecture the design team wanted, sat outside what a prescriptive Deemed-to-Satisfy approach could comfortably accommodate. Working alongside the design team, the building surveyor and Fire and Rescue NSW, CORE developed a suite of Performance Solutions — addressing travel distances extended across the floors, stair discharge adjacent to the car-park entry, upper-level and rooftop-plant travel via non-fire-isolated stairs, an open 'atrium' stair between levels, hydrant and booster siting, and drenched glazing to the fire walls.

The outcome preserved the architecture and removed unnecessary fire protection from the building, delivering cost and programme benefit to the builder through a staged handover on a live precinct — while demonstrating full compliance with the NCC Performance Requirements and a robust level of safety for the staff, visitors and community the building serves.