Where do young constructors go to hear about amazing careers in construction?

There is a growing band of construction and construction related organisations who are investing in the Centre for Smart Modern Construction - c4SMC at Western Sydney University. These organisations understand that the modern construction era presents new challenges as the industry transforms into its future-self, they also see the amazing potential for the best of tomorrow's construction professionals to make a difference.

The Centre will be asking these organisations to share their insights about themselves and how they see the future for tomorrow's graduates. In the following interview Nick Luzar shares his insights about how Hansen Yuncken is responding to today's client needs and how the company sees the future for Western Sydney construction graduates.

The Centre will interview all of its industry partners and share their insights into how the construction industry is changing and about the amazing career opportunities spaning smart technologies, smart enterprises, smart projects and how making tomorrow's smart buildings will unfold. These industry partners are becoming important players in global construction markets. Companies like TAHPI leading health planners and XLam are leaders in mass timber supply in Australia and New Zealand, Weathertex supplies wood fibre products across global markets, StrongBuild are at the edge of the timber structures market expansion, and Austruss are local leaders in fast light weight steel structures. They all have plenty to share with young construction professionals. And, recently renowned designers Nettleton Tribe have joined c4SMC.

Sharing construction career opportunities have changed dramatically over the last 20 or more years. Social media has a big hand in those communications, but it is hard to do better than meet the leaders in modern construction face to face. People like Phil DeGail founder of Prime Construction and the NSW Director of Qanstruct Josh Horan are practitioners who have done it all. They understand that construction will always demand a sound understanding of the fundamentals while embracing new practices. The university's future constructors will get early access to meet and engage with these partners. Experienced leaders like Bedrock's David Michel and Prime Build's Dean Willemsen will be able to share their business startup and investment experiences.

The Centre is indebted to its partners who see their engagement with c4SMC as the natural course of putting back and renewal. They see the importance of investing in helping to develop new modern construction research and fostering the best academics to prepare tomorrows construction graduates, to endure they are future-ready. They see the potential of grasping the opportunity to leverage off the massive amount of future construction planned for Western Sydney over the next 20-years, and to ensure that this activity becomes the foundation for an innovative, resilient and smart construction hub.

It is the investment these partners have already made that has enabled the first of the new c4SMC High Achiever Undergraduate Scholarships to be offered this year. And it is these investments that have enabled the first of four new Smart Modern Construction related PhD Scholarships to be offered and commenced by mid-2018. It is this investment that has convinced the University to set aside a 5000m2 site at the Kingswood Campus for a SmartBuild-Lab (SBL) which is planned to provide industry with a full-scale demonstration platform to show how modern construction off-site will come together on-site. It is the SBL that will help test new assembly processes and enable early industry capability building while feeding back into the CM program.

The growing list of c4SMC partners

Written by:
David Chandler OAM
Adjunct Professor at Western Sydney University
23 February 2018