Perfect plant processing demolished concrete beside the gantry crane and structural steel over the station box.
Period: October 2024 to March 2025
An acoustic shed and its internal structures removed from directly above an operational Sydney Metro station box, for the Acciona Ferrovial Joint Venture. Underground works continued every day below. The structure came apart in the reverse order it went up, piece by engineered piece.
The problem
Acoustic sheds are built over metro shafts so tunnelling can run around the clock without waking the neighbours. When the shed at Burwood had done its job, it had to come down from directly above an operational station box, with tunnelling logistics still running underneath and capping beams, shotcrete walls and ground anchors that could not be touched. Dropping anything was not an option. Neither was stopping the client's programme.Deconstruction, not demolition
The shed was taken apart in the reverse order it was built. Roof and wall panels came off first under sequenced rigging with dual-crane lifts, every pick planned against a lift study before the shackle went on. Purlins, cladding and structural steel followed, each element separated by shear or oxy cut, restrained before release and lifted clear over live infrastructure.Inside, footings, columns and in-shed concrete structures were demolished mechanically with engineered vibration control. Where concrete met the assets that had to stay, the breaker stopped and the saws took over: vibration-free diamond cutting and non-impact trimming by the Perfect Concrete Care team, protecting the capping beams and shotcrete walls that framed the shaft.
Cut reinforcement and structural steel staged for removal, with the shaft gantry behind.
Working inside someone else's programme
The hardest constraint was not structural, it was logistical. Crane access and lift windows were shared with the client's tunnelling operations, so the deconstruction programme was interleaved with theirs: co-located supervision, joint daily coordination, and exclusion zones that moved with the work. The client's underground programme lost no time to the demolition above it.
Processing demolition material beside live crane operations on Parramatta Road.
The result
Completed in March 2025, ahead of programme, with zero injuries and 98 per cent of materials recycled. The station box, its anchors and its shotcrete walls were handed back untouched.Why this matters to DeconCut clients
This is the work DeconCut is built on: structures that must come apart over live, high-consequence assets, where the method statement matters more than the machine and the client's programme cannot move. The same crews, engineering discipline and Perfect Group systems now operate under the DeconCut name for industrial cutting scopes.Related services: decommissioning and shutdown cuts, heavy steel and industrial cutting, cutting engineering and methodologies.Taking something apart over a live asset?
Send us the drawings and the constraints. The methodology comes before the price.
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