The Italians have claimed the Southern Hemisphere’s largest timber roof as their own, with His Excellency Nicola Lener, the Italian Ambassador to Australia, joining project partners Theca Timber, WSP and Rubner Timber Engineering beneath the new Sydney Fish Market canopy at Blackwattle Bay. His presence was no diplomatic courtesy, with every one of the structure’s 584 glue-laminated beams made in Northern Italy and shipped halfway around the world, a body of work that raises a fair question: Is this Italy’s greatest export?
Lener told guests and diplomats that the canopy carried diplomatic weight as well as timber, with Simona Bernardini, the Italian Trade Commissioner in Sydney, by his side. “This structure symbolises the importance of the Italian-Australian bilateral relationship,” Lener said, citing a shared commitment to a sustainable built environment and the circular economy. Spanning the entire market hall, the roof carries 584 beams, the longest stretching 32 metres and the heaviest weighing eight tonnes, holding 1,800 cubic metres of structural spruce threaded through with more than 50 tonnes of steel connectors.
Manufactured at Rubner Timber Engineering’s facility in Northern Italy from timber grown in sustainably managed Dolomite forests, every beam left the factory fully finished, built to endure decades of salt air over a working harbour. Each element then passed under the Sydney Harbour Bridge by chartered vessel, part of a 594-piece consignment on an eight-week voyage that Rubner’s Gianluigi Traetta has called one of the most complicated parts of the project.
Engineered in the Dolomites, Standing Over Sydney Harbour
WSP acted as lead structural engineer, working with Theca Timber and the wider project team to turn 3XN’s vision of a floating timber canopy into a system capable of surviving a working waterfront, whilst Rubner engineered, fabricated and delivered every beam and Theca coordinated the early design and carried procurement through to delivery. For Ross Clarke, Principal Director at WSP, the market typified the multidisciplinary problem-solving for which his Property and Buildings teams are built, “bringing architecture, complex structure, and a sense of place together to work as one”. Adam Shears, Director of Theca Timber, said the project showed what becomes possible when design, engineering and fabrication are integrated from the outset, with “the scale and precision of the roof” reflecting a new level of confidence in engineered timber’s standing in major public infrastructure.
