To compliment the stunning nautical views of the Whitsunday Islands, in the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, the client desired a world class Yacht Club and 35 Villas. Opus International were the Structural Engineers that helped achieve this iconic development and solved a range of Architectural and Environmental challenges:
Above the poorly compacted dredged fill, the Yacht Club and nearby Villas were founded on steel piles driven to the underlying rock and preserved by cathodic protection. Other foreshore villas had raft footings on engineered ground and the super-elevated Villas were supported on piles to bedrock, laterally restrained by ground anchors.
The terraces of the Yacht Club cantilever up to 12.0 metres - mostly over sea water, whilst appearing slim: Opus developed an internally post-tensioned in-situ concrete solution with cross-section tapering from 900mm to 200mm thick utilizing elegant 'keel columns’ as counterbalance.
Opus developed a structural steel design for the petal shaped roofs, comprising a cylindrical vierendeel grillage, spanning up to 16.0 m and cantilevering up to 11.0 m, which effectively transferred the cyclonic wind loads to the central curved concrete walls, minimising the roof’s structural depth. Opus’ design best simplified the fabrication and erection of the roof frames, also allowing for their support on steel 'tree-columns,' whose 'branches' meet them at a variety of dispositions and angles.
The outstanding appearance of the buildings was successfully accomplished by innovative and efficient structural solutions, whilst addressing the challenges of the Hamilton Island Yacht Club’s foreshore locality on a tropical island.