Woodhead’s $600m win

The Perth office of Woodhead International has won an international paid design competition for a $A600 million mixed-use development in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Woodhead was the only Australian firm invited to take part in a field of five architectural practices.

The development is to be located on a high-profile site in the Pakistani capital and will include a five-star hotel, office tower, apartment tower, a retail centre and extensive formal landscaping.

Woodhead principal and manager of the Perth office, Mark Unger, told WA Business News the project, for a consortium of businessmen, was the biggest land deal in Pakistan’s history.

Having been invited to participate in the competition, invitees were given six weeks to work on their submissions.

Mr Unger said the project design would be run out of the Perth office in conjunction with Pakistan-based firm Arcob Associates, with a December 2008 target for com-pletion of the construction phase.

“The Perth office has never taken the lead on a project like this; it is one of the better design offices and is relatively proximate compared to our offices over east,” Mr Unger said.

The competition theme was based on the principle of ‘Chahar Bagh’, which translates to ‘four gardens’ in Persian, a planning principle brought to Pakistan by the Moguls thousands of years ago, according to Mr Unger.

“We divided the site into four parts consisting of apartments, the office and hotel tower, retail and the gardens,” he said.

“The scheme has proceeded into design development and consolidates Woodhead Inter-national’s presence in South-East Asia and the sub-continent.”

Woodhead has seven offices in Australia, two in China and one in Singapore.

The Woodhead announcement comes amid moves by several other Australian firms into Asia and the Middle East, attracted by projects collectively worth tens of billions of dollars.

Consulting engineering firm GHD has several projects in the region, including master planning in conjunction with Woods Bagot, for Dubai Maritime City, a new $US1 billion infrastructure project.

GHD has also been appointed as project manager for one of the world’s largest urban developments, known as The Palms, in Dubai.

Architecture firm The Cox Group also recently beat international competitors to win a major university project planned for the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, and architects Woods Bagot last year designed the $400 million College of Technology in Doha, Qatar.

Perth-based BG&E is providing structural engineering services for a 21-tower residential apartment project being constructed by Multiplex in Dubai, and is also working on three other high-rise developments, including a 70-storey tower.