480 Queen Street, Brisbane

ARCHITECT: BVN Donovan Hill
BUILDER: Grocon Pty Ltd
PANDOMO®: Andrew Dore, Surface Archetypes

Congratulations to Andrew Doré and the team at Surface Archetypes who won 1st Place in their category, ‘Overlays less than ¼” over 5000 square foot’ for their workmanship at 480 Queen Street, Brisbane. This prestigious award was presented by the U.S. Decorative Concrete on the 17th January at the ‘World of Concrete’ that was held in Las Vegas.

480 Queen Street is a 32 storey office tower in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia where 3500 sqm (32670 sq ft) of ARDEX PANDOMO® W1 decorative plaster was installed to walls and ceilings. The tower had a 6-star Green Star rating target, which was achieved in the design and a 5 star NABERS Energy target.

Surface Archetypes supplied and installed PANDOMO® W1 to high level ceilings, to stair walls, to light voids. At the time of the contract being signed by Surface Archetypes never before had this quantity of ARDEX PANDOMO® W1 been installed in a single project and for Surface Archetypes, it was a chance to showcase their expertise in the eyes of the design world.

Surface Archetypes went through rigorous sampling showing colours and styles and countless hours were spent creating colour samples to achieve a finish that met the client’s requirements.

Once on site, the logistics of maintaining colour and effect across the 3500 sqm was a huge task. In the beginning,there were only 2 trowel hands applying the ARDEX PANDOMO® W1; however, at the height of the installation, Surface Archetypes had 9 trowel hands applying the decorative finish in adjacent areas. According to Andrew Doré, this was byfar the most difficult aspect of the installation, ensuring that the pattern effect did not differ from one area to the next.

Andrew Doré from Surface Archetypes said, ‘I developed many grey hairs and tested the patience of myself and the trowel hands because this project was going to be viewed by many across the design industry, and it had to be faultless. The trowel hands had to accept that I was going to be relentless in my quality control mode’.

Fabian Morgan, Managing Director of ARDEX Australia said ‘this is another great innovative use of ARDEX PANDOMO® W1.’