50 Ann Street (State Law Building)
TRSC fall arrest GPR scanning at 50 Ann Street (State Law Building / 'Batman Tower'), Brisbane CBD — OPUS programme 025.
50 Ann Street is a 29-storey high-rise commercial office tower in the Brisbane CBD, originally completed in 1977 as Comalco House and renamed the State Law Building following a major refurbishment programme in 1995. Both the original building and the refurbishment were designed by local Brisbane firm Conrad Gargett & Partners. As Comalco House the building was originally clad in aluminium external panels — a deliberate showcase of the Comalco aluminium business — which were stripped during the 1993 refurbishment. The refurbished form, with its dark exterior and dramatic massing, became widely known to Brisbane residents and media as 'Gotham City', 'Gotham Tower' or 'the Batman Building' for its perceived resemblance to the architectural style of the fictional American city in the DC Comics universe. The tower has historically housed the Office of the Attorney-General of Queensland and other Queensland Government departments and is located close to the Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law (Supreme Court and District Court of Queensland) and the Commonwealth Law Courts. The tower is currently owned by global real estate firm Hines and is undergoing a major upgrade programme delivered by Buildcorp under a 27-month design-and-construct contract, covering the full replacement of primary electrical and mechanical infrastructure (including three new 1,100 kWr water-cooled chillers installed via a 350-tonne mobile crane and a cantilevered lifting beam at Level 28), major fire system upgrades, a new multi-services riser, and an integrated 25-floor office fitout co-designed with IA Design. All upgrades are being delivered via a staged rolling-handover methodology in blocks of five floors, with the building remaining fully occupied throughout.
TRSC was engaged in 2025 under OPUS programme 025 to deliver investigation services at 50 Ann Street, Brisbane City — recorded in OPUS as 50 Ann St Fall Arrest GPR Scanning. The engagement type is categorised as Structural Investigation. Fall arrest anchor design and verification on a 29-storey high-rise commercial tower requires precise location of reinforcement before any drilling or coring for new fall arrest anchor installation, both to confirm safe drill paths through the concrete slab edge or roof slab and to verify that the structural capacity at the proposed anchor location is sufficient for the design fall-arrest force (typically 6 kN under AS/NZS 1891.4 - Industrial fall-arrest systems and devices and AS/NZS 5532 - Manufacturing requirements for single-point anchor devices). Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) scanning is the standard non-destructive technique for resolving reinforcement layout, slab thickness and embedded services to within several millimetres without disturbing the existing structure. The OPUS programme is recorded as Archived, indicating the scanning deliverable has been issued. The engagement coincides with the major Hines / Buildcorp programme to upgrade base-building electrical, mechanical and fire systems across the tower while it remains fully occupied, which itself necessitates new fall-arrest provision to support trades working at height. The engagement scope is restricted to the GPR scanning contracted under programme 025; any subsequent fall-arrest design or certification, if commissioned, would fall under a separate OPUS programme.
Engineering questions about 50 Ann Street (State Law Building)
What is 50 Ann Street?
Who owns 50 Ann Street?
What did TRSC do at 50 Ann Street?
What standards govern fall-arrest anchor design?
- Owner / Operator50 Ann Street Building Upgrade — Buildcorp
- Owner / Operator50 Ann Street Office Fitout — Buildcorp
- WikipediaState Law Building — Alchetron / Wikipedia mirror