The Capral Facility consists of two enormous industrial buildings with a total floor area of 70,000 square metres, and a two storey office building. Osborn Lane’s client, Rimco Building Systems, won the structural steel subcontract for the facility in late 2003.

The steelwork had been designed and documented by the project engineer, but the subcontract was based on the steelwork being re-designed by Rimco and Osborn Lane. Contract negotiations between Rimco and Watpac, the builder, concluded only a few weeks before the first steel had to be delivered to site, so we had some busy days at that stage of the project. The project also had a few technical challenges for our engineers, with clear spans up to 54 metres, awnings up to 14m wide, and large distances between bracing walls.