No Grade, No Problem at Kingston Foreshore

Project Name        Kingston Foreshore Redevelopment
Location                Lake Burley Griffin, Kingston ACT
Client                     Kingston Foreshore
Civil Engineer        SMEC Australia
Civil Contractor     Chinchilla Contractors Pty Ltd
Project Cost          $3.5m
Completion Date   April 2004

James Hardie Products Used
800m of SlimDrain™ Drainage System.

The Kingston Foreshore Redevelopment represents a new era of luxury living in Australia’s capital. Under the management of Kingston Foreshore, a division of the Land Development Agency, the 37 hectare development will deliver a vibrant mixed-use residential and commercial waterfront precinct, for the first time in Canberra’s history, right on the foreshore of Lake Burley Griffin.

The overall plan includes an impressive combination of:

• 1,700 – 1,800 residential dwellings and serviced apartments
• 7,000 square metres of specialty retail space, restaurants and cafes
• Up to 30,000 square metres of small-scale commercial work-space
• 14,000 square metres for cultural, arts, leisure and community uses
• 19 hectares of public domain, a recreational and working boat harbour

To achieve a truly prestigious waterfront development, it is important that quality is integrated into every aspect of the project, including infrastructure such as the stormwater drainage.

Engineering consultants SMEC were faced with the challenge of finding an appropriate drainage solution for the development, that could function with a zero longitudinal pavement grade. The drainage system needed to collect surface water without distorting the pavement design. SMEC engineer Peter Lewis identified the SlimDrain™ system from James Hardie for its ability to achieve the necessary project objectives, while also providing a number of additional benefits, including:

• The design of the SlimDrain™ drainage system meant that the pipe could be installed on a grade, while the grate followed the finished level. This provided adequate drainage with no detention.
• The low profile of the SlimDrain™ system allowed the grate to be located within a kerb and gutter to make it hardly visible, which provided minimal impact on the aesthetics.This provided adequate drainage with no detention.
• The low profile of the SlimDrain™ system allowed the grate to be located within a kerb and gutter to make it hardly visible, which provided minimal impact on the aesthetics.
• The grate is secure enough to resist vibration or vandalism.
• The grate is bike safe.The SlimDrain™ system is designed to form a continuous or semi-continuous narrow opening in a pavement, to help alleviate ponding traditionally associated with continuous gullies and pits, while providing excellent hydraulic characteristics, a robust design, and a 2 hour fire rating.

For more information on the SlimDrain™ drainage system and its many benefits, please contact our Customer Service Team on 1800 659 850, or click here.

‘The SlimDrain™ system allowed SMEC to satisfy the ACT design standards for drainage while enabling a non-standard flat road to be constructed. The narrow grate minimises the visual impact of a grated drainage system on the road design which allows the high quality finish of the development to be maintained.’
Peter Lewis, Design Engineer, SMEC Australia