Silk Logistics Warehouse

The Silk Logistics Warehouse was constructed on land that had never previously supported a building. The Port of Brisbane’s Future Port Expansion project has progressively reclaimed land on Fisherman Island since 2007, creating the largest land reclamation project of its kind in the southern hemisphere. Building on reclaimed sand and clay dredged from the mouth of the Brisbane River required Tomkins to lay substantial additional CBR material across the entire site before warehouse construction and external hardstand works could commence.

The 20,000m² heavy-duty external hardstand was engineered to support imposed point loads exceeding 100 tonnes from shipping containers. Tomkins used a Fibre Combi Slab system incorporating two layers of mesh (SL91 top and SL92 bottom) with 35kg/m² of Dramix 3D steel fibre, which allowed the slab thickness to be reduced without compromising structural performance.

Placing over 13,000m² of concrete within the programme required dual shift-working labour crews. Day crews prepared slabs while night crews poured from 3am to avoid the exposed wind conditions at the port and to allow finishing before sunrise, reducing the risk of premature drying and surface cracking.

Roller door design presented a further challenge. To comply with the Fire Engineering Report’s requirement for over 130m² of free air, Tomkins coordinated the roller doors with the Fire Indicator Panel so they would automatically raise during a fire alarm — achieving 100% free air compliance without the perforated roller doors specified in the original design and preventing the ingress of sand and insects from the port environment.

During construction, the Port of Brisbane requested the installation of an additional 300m+ of sewer rising main infrastructure along Curlew Street, outside the original scope. Tomkins managed this variation without impacting programme, delivering the additional sewer works and the project itself three weeks ahead of the revised schedule.