Modular Construction: Is Australia Ready?
Kapitol Conversations EP3 – unpacking volumetric modular construction in Australia and what it could mean for housing supply and delivery certainty.
There’s a point in every build where structure stops being abstract.
At NEXTDC M3 Melbourne in West Footscray, we’re closing in on the roof steel package. More than 800 tonnes of structural steel are now in place to form the backbone of the roof. At peak, we’ve had over 250 workers on the roof, supported by six mobile and tower cranes coordinating lifts across the full site footprint. That’s a lot of tonnage and people working in close coordination to place it precisely, with safety front and centre.
None of that happens cleanly without deep planning work done well before the steel arrived on site. Every element of this build has been fully modelled and coordinated before fabrication. Our digital engineering team ran the full coordination model ahead of procurement, so when steel arrived, it fitted as intended. That’s the practical benefit of BIM in construction: you catch the clashes in the model, not on site. It protects programme and it protects cost.
It’s an approach we carry across all of our data centre construction projects and is crucial at this scale. With a facility like M3 Melbourne, where programme drives real revenue for the client and dozens of trades work across the same footprint, model-first coordination isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s how we deliver with confidence.
This is part of a partnership with NEXTDC that spans more than seven years, with more than 30 contracts delivered across the M2 campus in Tullamarine and M3 in West Footscray. Each new stage builds on the last. The lessons in sequencing services on a live, security-sensitive campus, keeping fabrication and installation aligned, and managing programme when dozens of trades share the same footprint sit directly behind the coordination discipline on display at M3 today.
With the structure advancing, the site has moved into the next phase of services installation.
At ground level, the fuel tanks are in and the 9-metre acoustic panels to the north of the roof are complete.
Inside the switch rooms, Speedpanel walls are going up fast while electricians continue their containment works. On the chiller rooms, roofing is well underway. The chiller modules are now in place on top of those chiller rooms, setting the project up for cooling tower installation throughout the month. Generator installation is approaching as the site continues to ramp up.
The roof has moved from a structural milestone into the platform that carries the facility’s core power and cooling infrastructure. Structure enables services. Services enable commissioning. Commissioning enables the data centre to go live for NEXTDC’s customers.
Our site team, digital engineers, and trade partners have built a strong base to build from. You can see the full history of our work with NEXTDC on the NEXTDC M3 data centre portfolio page. We’ll be back with another update as the site continues to ramp up.
