Week of 12 December
1. Sod turning celebration on new Garden Drive Microsoft Data Centre site in Melbourne (Australia)
On 5 December, BESIX Watpac held a ceremony to celebrate the start of construction of a new Data Centre for Microsoft in Melbourne.
‘Uncle’ Ringo Terrick, Elder of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation, blessed the site with a traditional Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony with echoes of the didgeridoo played in the background by highly regarded cultural performer Paul Kelly. Local Industry, government bodies, community organisations and social enterprises came together to celebrate.
Microsoft recently awarded BESIX Watpac the construction of this new 29,400 sqm data centre in Melbourne, including 5 data storage halls and an ancillary services and administration area. Garden Drive will be the third consecutive data centre built by BESIX Watpac in the past five years.
Acknowledging and celebrating the traditional custodians of the land on which we work, is part of the BESIX Watpac commitment to reconciliation and is embedded in its National Cultural Awareness Training Policy.
2. Ministerial visit to the Avenue Henneau bridge site (Belgium)
Pierre-Yves Dermagne, Belgian Minister for Economy and Employment, visited our colleagues from BESIX and BESIX Infra last Tuesday, 6 December.
On the agenda of the working meeting were social legislation, safety, subcontracting and a visit to the project site.
Thanks to our colleagues Gauthier Van Vyve (People), Gunter Van Gaever (BESIX Infra) and Christoph Klingeleers (BESIX) for their brilliant presentations.
3. Good progress in the A16 Groene Boog Rotterdam project (The Netherlands)
Our colleagues from BESIX NL are making good progress in the A16 ‘Groene Boog’ project in Rotterdam as they recently started pouring the concrete top slab deck of segment 15. They are also reinforcing deck B of the first segment in the other direction.
On behalf of Rijkswaterstaat, the executive arm of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, BESIX NL is responsible fort the design, the construction, the financing, and 20-year maintenance of the A16 Rotterdam together with Dura Vermeer, Mobilis TBI, Croonwolter&dros, Van Oord, Rebel and John Laing.
If you want to know how the construction of the A16 Rotterdam is coming, BESIX NL sent a drone into the air, giving you a nice overview of the works:
4. Sorbonne Master students on academic visit at BESIX in Brussels (Belgium)
On 9 December, the students of the Master in Real Estate Investment and Construction Management and Strategy at the Sorbonne University in Paris, invited by our CEO, Pierre Sironval (also sponsor of the class of 2022-23), visited BESIX in Brussels.
The students first visited the Manhattan project, an office building from the 70s located in the North of Brussels, which underwent a complete makeover two years ago, turning it into an ultramodern, energy-efficient building, a fine example of forward-looking urban regeneration. Afterwards they participated in a workshop to define and present innovative real estate strategies.
And then this...
The thermometer is showing polar temperatures. Let's take a look at the impact that this winter weather has on our construction sites and working conditions, with an interview with Benoit Jouret, works manager on the Mediasquare project site (Brussels, Belgium), for our client, RTBF*, on the 1 PM news of... RTBF!
* RTBF is the Belgian French-speaking national TV channel