The design of Barangaroo Station included 12,500 SQM of large-scale terrazzo tiled platform floors and over 7,700 sandstone feature panels for walls. Meaning large volumes of high silica content materials to be custom cut and installed in an underground environment, presenting significant dust management and health and safety challenges. When a male / female amenities block was due to be removed the team recognised the structure was well-suited for repurposing into a contained cutting room environment. BESIX Watpac worked closely with Property Risk Australia (PRA), their third-party hygienist, who redesigned and customised the amenity block shells into a new silica cutting room—made up of a ‘cutting room’ and ‘extraction room’ as two separate, fully sealed areas. A sealed room with ideal air pressure – the team applied a push and pull system involving two fans pushing air in on one side of the room and a retrofitted dust extraction system on the opposite side of the room where the operator is cutting to “pull” or extract the air out. While the process did add time to this section of the schedule, efficiencies elsewhere kept the project program on track. This scenario and process is an example of collective problem-solving ensuring safety requirements were evaluated, adhered to and risk was reduced, resulting in this worthy entry of winning the 2024 $100M+ category and the MBA NSW overall Safety Awards Winner