SCHOOL OF CONTROL SYSTEMS AND ELECTRICAL

ENGINEERING

Department of Electrical Services Engineering

Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Services Engineering

Programme Code: (DT010) 20010/11

Year 3

Mr. Tom O Conner

Student Name: Stephen Murphy

Class Group: 3A
Date issued: 07/10/10
Date returned _________________

Department Stamp Where

Necessary
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Declaration

I hereby certify that the material, which is submitted in this project, is entirely
my own work and has not been submitted for any academic assessment other
than part fulfilment of the assessment procedures for the programme Bachelor
of Technology in Electrical Services Engineering
(B. Tech.) (DT 010 or DT 078).

Signature of candidate: Stephen Murphy

Date: 14/10/10
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Contents
Declaration............................................................................................................................................2
The Sydney Opera House.......................................................................................................................4
Project overview/background...........................................................................................................4
Project team / stakeholders..............................................................................................................5
Construction......................................................................................................................................6
Stage 1...............................................................................................................................................6
The podium....................................................................................................................................6
Stage 2...............................................................................................................................................7
The Roof........................................................................................................................................7
Stage 3...............................................................................................................................................8
Walls and Interior..........................................................................................................................8
Additional Construction.....................................................................................................................9
Project costs......................................................................................................................................9
TOTAL EXPENDITURE.....................................................................................................................9
Summery.........................................................................................................................................10
Appendices......................................................................................................................................11
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The Sydney Opera House

Project overview/background
The Sydney opera house construction started in 1957 and was finally finished 1n 1973. This is a one
off building, and it stands on Bennelong Point the peninsula at circular quay, Sydney harbour in the
centre of the city. The Sydney opera house’s history was started in the late 1940’s, when the Chief
Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Director of the NSW Conservatorium of Music
proposed a new venue to told larger crowds. As at the time there was no dedicated venue that could
cater for the large crowds wanting to attend orchestral concerts. In 1956 the New South Wales
government gave out an open invitation to architects and designers to submit their best design.
Over 233 designs from 32 countries were put forward to the New South Wales government, in the
Sydney opera house competition held in 1956. In January 1957, Danish architect Jorn Utzon was
announced the winner of 'Opera House Design Competition' and was awarded a prize money of
5000 pounds. This is a magnificent piece of architectural design and an amazing engineering feat
and is even considered by many to be the 8 th wonder of the world. It is a iconic building that is
recognised all over the world and its magnificent shape and silhouette that graces the Sydney
harbour is undoubtedly one of the most unique building that has been constructed in modern times.

Utzons original competition drawings

www.sydneyoperahouse.com/uploadedFiles/About_Us/Ad_Hoc_Information_Pages/World
HeritageNominationDocument.pdf
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Project team / stakeholders

The project team of the Opera house consisted of the main architect and designer Jorn Utzon as
shown in figure 1. Under him were the engineering company Ove Arup and Partners. There were
different construction firms employed during the build of this building which will be detailed in the
following. Up to 10,000 construction workers were also engaged in the
construction of the Sydney opera house.

As the competition winner of the Sydney opera house’s design, Jorn Utzon
became the head architect and designer of the building. Jorn Utzon was a
Danish architect born in 1918. Alongside Utzon the construction firm Civil and
Civic were employed to start the initial stages who were closely monitored by
the engineering company Ove Arup and Partners.

Figure 1 In the later stages of the project , Hornibrook limited were introduced to serve
as the construction contractors along with a variety consultant offices from all
over the world. Such as the Acoustics consultants were from Berlin, Denmark and Australia.

In 1966 due to growing pressure and funding issues from the NSW government Utzon decided to
walk away from the project, 7 years into the construction after near completion of stage one and
two of the construction.

A partnership of Hall, Todd and Littlemore were then commissioned as the architects for stage 3
that consisted of designing the interior of the building until the completion of the project in 1973.

The stake holders of the Sydney opera house would be consisting of the Australian government,
therefore the main stake holders would of been the Australian people themselves which was largely
funded by the Australian national lottery.

Construction

The Sydney opera house was one that would need a great deal of intricate planning and
innovation in the design. Utzons design was one of marvel and will in turn test Ove Arup’s
engineering skills. The initial plan for the Opera house was to set the construction in three
stages.

Stage 1: The podium

Stage 2: The Roof

Stage 3: Walls and Stage 1 Stage 2

the Interior

The Podium

Stage 3
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Stage 1
The podium
(1959-1963)

“Stage 1 - Jørn Utzon and his son and partner, Jan Utzon, will prepare the Statement of Design
Principles. The Statement will document both the broad design concept and the detailed aspects of
the design in all the critical areas. It will be published as a prime reference for the long-term
conservation and management of the Sydney Opera House. It will also be a prime reference
document for any proposal for change affecting the building or its site. This first stage is expected to
be completed within six months. “
( www.sydneyoperahouse.com/About/MR_BP_UtzonAppointment.aspx)

The construction of stage 1 and the Opera house started on December 5, 1958. The initial time line
for the platform of the project was suspected to complete in 6 months this was run totally overdue
by over four years and was finally completed in Feb 1963. There are many reasons giving why the
project ran so late. The first one would be of the Australian governments increasing pressure on
Utzon and forcing him to start two years before his initial starting date. Utzon was furious with this
as he did not even have the final design completed and had not had all the final drawing finished.

In leading to this the project met one of its first speed bump with the concrete that was laid for the
podium and the columns to hold the weight of the huge sail shaped roof was insufficient and had to
be completely demolished and rebuilt to the specifications. The weather had also to blame for the
delay in the project thin included unexpected difficulty while trying to divert storm water.

During this stage the natural cooling system would of been installed this comprised of the hot water
pipes been cooled naturally by the water underneath the building. This would be very closely
designed the same as a heat transfer unit. To stop the pipes from eroding zinc tablets were inserted
into the system.
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Stage 2
The Roof

(-Feb 1967)

When stage 1 was finally completed Utzon made relations with Hornibrook Group Pty Ltd who were
brought into the project to construct Utzons
magnificent roof designs. This design took both
Utzon ,Arup and the Design team over 5 years to
finally complete the design of the roof sculpture
from 1957 to 1963. “The design team went
through at least twelve iterations of the form of
the shells trying to find an economically
acceptable form” in the end and with help of one
of the earliest computer software they found out
to get the same angles and curves or the different
sails they could all be cut and scaled to make up
one spherical section.

This was just but one of the many innovations that had to made during the construction of the
Sydney Opera House. Another one of the design innovations that had to worked out was the one of
how to house these huge tiled sail arches. This is another reason why Ove Arup and Utzon had to
work close together in the build of the opera house. Within Utzons design he did not want any pillars
or major columns to be shown inside to hold up the roof. This led to Ove Arup creating a way to
keep the roof up without using columns. This design consisted of a method which is called post
tensioning, with this firstly the large ribbed arch shapes where made with the ability to encase large
tension cables. When these cables are put under serious pressure the concrete arches could then
free stand without the need for columns. With the post tensioning system the arches could
therefore easily withstand the weight of the roof.

The Hornibrook Group manufactured 2400 precast ribs along with the 4000 roof panels. These were
constructed in an on-site factory. With this it allowed the company to prefabricate the roof on the
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ground which saves the company from having to stick these huge tiles on at a height.

Stage 3
Walls and Interior
In the end of completion of stage 2 in February of 1966, due to a change in government and
increased pressure and expenditure cuts on the project Jorn Utzon walked away from the
project. This was due to large delays and over run costs which was usually blamed on Utzon.

“His position was principally taken over by Peter Hall, who became largely responsible for
the interior design. Other persons appointed that same year to replace Utzon were E. H.
Farmer as government architect, D. S. Littlemore and Lionel Todd.”
(wapedia.mobi/en/Sydney_Opera_House)

As Utzon had resigned there were many changes on the original design that Utzon had
originally set out, such as a venue catering for both concerts and opera became solely just
for opera. Fortunately the exterior of the building was basically complete so the changed to
it were minimised to the interior. There were many acoustic consultants involved in the
project from across the globe, again many of the set our designs were changed. As the
exterior of the building many consisted of concrete which has very poor acoustic values it
was decided to make a void between the exterior and interior as to eliminate the sound
dissipating into the concrete. For better acoustics the consultants agreed on using plywood
to cover the interior of the venues as it has excellent acoustic values and can be easily
shaped into the varies shaped needed to get the best sound out of the venue.

The Opera house was finally completed in 1973 and was officially opened by Queen
Elizabeth II on 20 October 1973.

Additional Construction

Since its completion in 1973 there has been many different improvements and additions made to
the building itself and the area on which it stands. In 1988 the forcourt was refurbished. From 1988-
1989 the initial upgrade of the interior and eternal started before the second upgrade had begun an
underground car park was built in the site which started construction in late 1990 which can hold up
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1100 cars underground in a 12 story cavern.this project was finished the 17 march 1993 six months
ahead of schedule.

After this addition came another historical milestone in the history of the Sydney opera house as
Utzon was reunited with his masterpiece to carry out the second upgrade on the iconic building from
1998- 2004.

Project costs
The story of the cost of this project was one or controversy leading in the resignation of
Utzon. The initial cost of the opera house was estimated to be 7 million Australian dollars
and taking 4 years to complete the project.

As we know this did not go as planned and the finishing cost in 1973 amounted to 102
million dollars.

See below for the full list of project costs from 1957-2002

TOTAL EXPENDITURE
  Actual
Million
STAGE 1: PLATFORM: 1957-1963 (Architect: Jørn Utzon)  $5.2

STAGE 2: ROOF: To Feb 1967 (Architect: Jørn Utzon)  $13.2

STAGE 3: INTERIOR: To June 1973 (Architect: Peter Hall) $80.4

FORECOURT REFURBISHMENT: 1988 (Andrew Anderson)  $34.6

UPGRADE 1: EXTERIOR / INTERIOR: 1988-1989 (PWD)  $120.0

UNDERGROUND CAR PARK: To 1993 Mar 17 $40.0

THEATREWORKS / THE STUDIO / CH ANTEROOM / WESTERN $12.0

BROADWALK FOYER: To 1999 Mar 5 (Architect: Leif Kristensen) 

UPGRADE 2: EXTERIOR / INTERIOR: 1998-2002 (Architects: Richard *$69.0

Johnson / Jørn & Jan Utzon) 

TOTAL $374.4

http://www.twf.org.au/research/drew3.html#ESTIMATES%20AND%20EXPENDITURE
%201957-1973
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Summery
In summery of the project planning and construction of the Sydney opera house has many
conflicting issues. The rushed start of the project without specific plans and drawings
finished had its toll to play. As there were no specific design team in place at the beginning it
seems that it really was on a wing and a prayer as the construction firm really had no
specific guidelines to follow leading to the whole podium having to be redone. That was an
occasion were the whole project was in disarray. Alternatively it was also shown when a
team starts to gel such as Utzon and Arup when they got together to design and figure out
how exactly they were going to construct the now famous sail roof on top of that iconic
building in Sydney Australia.
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Appendices

http://www.new7wonders.com/file/download/mediendb/1/id/297/ (accessed 0n 10/10/10)

http://lifestyle.iloveindia.com/lounge/facts-about-sydney-opera-house-3295.html accessed 0n
09/10/10)

http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com accessed on 08/10/2010 20:13:37 accessed 0n 10/10/10)

http://www.gids.nl/sydney/opera.html accessed 0n 10/10/10)

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Sydney_Opera_House accessed 0n 11/10/10)

http://oak.arch.utas.edu.au/projects/pdf/02s.pdf accessed 0n 08/10/10)

http://www.aviewoncities.com/sydney/operahouse.html http://www.twf.org.au/research/drew3l accessed 0n

10/10/10)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200504/s1355304.htm accessed 0n 10/10/10)

http://www.ats.org.au/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=324 car park

Pictures

http://www.heritage.nsw.gov.au/heritagensw/aut00/9_art.htm platform pic

books

The saga of Sydney Opera House: the dramatic story of the design and construction of
the icon of modern Australia[ CITATION Pet04 \l 6153 ]