The Markets Residences, Belconnen

A 10-storey build spread across a wide footprint is a different problem to a tower. Nobody is far from the ground. Everybody is a long way from everybody else.

That was the brief from Icon Construction at The Markets Residences in Belconnen. We supplied the site evacuation alarm system. Orisent wireless units went on every level, basement included, with no cabling between them.

The project

The Markets Residences brings 315 dwellings to the Belconnen Town Centre, opposite the Capital Food Market. Cox Architecture designed it. Icon Construction is building it across 10 storeys, a ground-level piazza and basement parking.

The floor plates are wide and the work spreads horizontally. On a site like this, one siren at the gate covers almost nothing.

The problem: distance, not height

Sound does not travel through a slab. It does not turn a corner around a core. It does not reach the far end of a basement over plant and vehicle noise. A worker in a basement bay can miss a ground-level alarm entirely, and a basement is the worst place on any site to go unheard.

The response problem runs the same way. Someone who goes down at the far corner of a wide floor plate is out of sight and out of earshot. If raising the alert means walking to the first aid room, the alert does not get raised.

One site, several trades, one alert

Icon also ran a site with several trades working at once. Under the model WHS Regulations, a business must make, test and maintain an emergency plan. Where WHS duties are shared with other businesses at the same workplace, those parties must coordinate on a master emergency plan. The ACT applies the harmonised laws, so that duty lands on an ACT site exactly as the model sets it out.

A shared plan needs a shared alert. Three trades running three different sirens is not one plan.

What we supplied

Icon went with three emergency buttons on every level, basement included. Some raise a first aid alert to nominated responders. Others trigger the evacuation siren. Every unit reports to the touchscreen control unit, which logs the device and the time.

Three per level is not redundancy for its own sake. It sets a maximum walking distance to a trigger. Nobody has to cross the plate to raise an alarm, and the far corners get the same cover as the lift lobby.

How the system works on site:

• First aid triggers any worker can press, not just trained responders
• Evacuation activated from the control unit or app, so the call stays with the site team
• Every press logged against device and time
• No cabling between levels or into the basement
• Units move as the work moves through the build

The trolleys

We paired the alarms with custom safety trolleys. An alarm tells the site something has happened. The trolley is what somebody wheels to the spot.

Each trolley is built around the risk it sits next to. The extinguisher, the first aid kit and the signage match the work in that zone rather than a generic pack. On a wide floor plate that matters more than it does in a tight footprint. Equipment fixed to a wall only helps the people near that wall.

The outcome

The Markets Residences is due for completion in 2026. Belconnen sits 20 minutes from our Queanbeyan warehouse, so site visits, extra units and replacement stock ran same day rather than same week.

Running a large-footprint site with basement levels? Call us on 1800 273 473 and we will map trigger positions against your floor plates before you order.