Enniscorthy firm designs $352m blood plasma plant in Brisbane

A County Wexford based architectural practice has designed a new head quarters and plasma fractioning facility for an Australian company named Aegros Ltd.

The $352m project was designed by NMB Architects Ltd, from their offices in Templeshannon, Enniscorthy.

The business has offices in Dublin and Paris, however, the concept design and planning application submitted to the Brisbane local authority was overseen by the firm from its County Wexford office. 

The Managing Director, Niall Byrne, said the ethos of business is to create high quality solutions that blend a strategic, design-led approaches with integral operational and commercial awareness.

Originally from Rosslare, Niall set up the practice in Templeshannon, Enniscorthy around year ago.

The business has over 30 years experience in large scale projects working primarily in the life sciences sector around the world.

The aim of Aegros Ltd is to develop the proposed new plasma fractionation facility for the manufacture of blood plasma products at a site in Springfield, near Brisbane.

The site operation will include production, logistics and an office building supporting the manufacturing operation for the company. The facility will produce IgG & Albumin. It also intends employing over 500 people at the Springfield facility which will operate on a 24/7 rotation. The plant will be located at a green field site in Augusta Parkway, City of Queensland.

Commenting on the on the nature of Niall's design concept, the founders of Aegros said: “The building is a stunner and how wonderful it is; it’s a legacy, it’s a green building incorporating the building logo into the structure.”

The Enniscorthy based design team was requested to consider and incorporate sustainability into the overall design with the aim of achieving a five-star classification for the office building from the Green Building Council of Australia.

The principles of sustainability for the project were based on key design approaches for the manufacturing building and ancillary offices.

They included reducing the internal area of the building requiring cooling, heating and conditioning by eliminating internal corridors within the offices.

All circulation between the office functions takes place in the external environment, resulting in a significant reduction in volume of air requiring heating, cooling and conditioning.

The office building was designed to provide a unique experience for the occupants and a transparent relationship to the exterior. The environment within the building will always be protected from direct sunlight entering the office areas by the shading canopy overhead.

Outlining some of the design features of the proposed facility, Niall said the roof canopy of the office building forms a continuous canopy providing shelter for occupants from rain and protection from the sunlight – similar to the canopy of foliage providing protection to the ground area of a forest.

“The canopy has been designed to collect rain water and interfaces directly above the Glulam structure, where rainwater will be collected and directed to grey water storage on the lower-level carpark for reuse across the site,” said Niall.

He said the concept for the design considered the building and it's connections to the surrounding areas being uninterrupted.

"The building concept evolves from principles of nature in the form of a forest,” said Niall.

He said the primary structure is an abstract representation of forest trees and it also relates to the IgG molecule structure within plasma and the principal element within the process of the client company.

"The primary structure will be formed incorporating concrete columns and glulam curved beams supporting the roof canopy,” said Niall. He also said the topography and planned road levels surrounding the site defined the concept for access, flows, operational activities and defined locations of activities within the campus.

Niall also said the site was designed to minimize visual connections with the manufacturing element of the facility.

He said the vision for the project was to construct an office building containing all ancillary activities and a manufacturing facility for Aegros that fosters “an atmosphere of innovation and collaboration for the Aegros team” with view to ensuring the company's goal of delivering next generation plasma fractioning products for both the Australian and international markets.

"The environment within the campus is directly influenced by nature, the surrounding environment, and the ability to function while promoting the company’s ethos of sustainability and social governance,” said Niall.