WA Museum Boola Bardip is a $400 million State Government infrastructure project integrating five renovated and revitalised heritage buildings with a spectacular new building. The project included the creation of eight new permanent exhibition galleries, a 1000sqm special exhibition gallery, life-long learning studios, and retail, café and public spaces.
Project details
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Services
Passive Fire Protection
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Industry
Architects & Designers / Engineers
Passive Fire Contractors
Plumbers
Electricians
Mechanical Services

Project Overview
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Year
2020
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Client
Hassell (Architect)
Multiplex (Builder) -
Location
Perth, Western Australia

The Challenges
Design a solution that complies with the relevant performance and safety standards under the National Construction Code (NCC) without compromising the building’s heritage value.
The existing Museum site included five heritage buildings with its oldest dating back to the mid-1800s. This created unique challenges for architects, designers and engineers when retrofitting fire protection systems
Some of the challenges included:
- Providing modern fire protection to a heritage building
- space constraints
- Aesthetics, budget and time pressures
The Solutions
Find the right balance between the requirements of achieving a sufficient level of life safety and property protection and an acceptable level of impact on historic character and historic fabric.
Progressive Materials worked closely with Hassell to design passive fire protection elements that met the project’s design brief, structural steel protection requirements all within a tight budget and timeframe. The systems specified for the project were selected to meet the fire safety requirements and achieve significant space, weight and cost savings.
For the protection of steel columns and beams we supplied Promat’s Vermiculite spray (CAFCO® 300), a lightweight coating that provides very efficient fire resistance with minimal thickness to structural steel. Part of a hybrid strategy of structural steel fire protection, we combined CAFCO® 300 with PROMATECT® 250 boards in various areas to meet strict design requirements. The use of the PROMATECT® board range was extensive on site. PROMATECT® 100 (fire rated boards) were installed as space saving fire walls by taking advantage of the requirement of only needing a single layer (each side of a stud) to provide the required fire separation.
PROMATECT® L500 board has been used to protect High Voltage (HV) cables that power essential building services such as emergency lighting, smoke extraction and other life safety systems. It provides fire separation for these essential services at varying temperatures so these can continue operating during a fire. This unique approval allowed the important HV cables to be protected during the event of a fire, so that they weren’t exposed to temperatures above 90 degrees celsius.
The project had a detailed array of services throughout the building to provide a comfortable experience for staff and visitors. These services were often routed through fire barriers. The full range of Promat fire stopping systems was selected to provide essential passive fire protection. Promat retrofit fire collars were used to protect plastic pipes, as well as a range of general building services. Promat fire stopping products including PROMASEAL® SupaWrap in conjunction with PROMASEAL® Bulkhead Batt System and PROMASEAL® A Acrylic Sealant systems was used to maintain the fire-resistance of a range of services as they penetrated various building elements. The combination of these fire stopping products ensured that the integrity and insulation of the fire rated building elements was not compromised by the penetrating services. The combination of fire stopping products provided essential protection to: cable trays, cables, and metal pipes.