Macquarie University ordered to strip cladding from $70m state of the art building

A top Sydney university has been ordered to remove combustible cladding from a state of the art campus building as new figures show almost 400 buildings in NSW are being investigated for cladding.

Cladding has been ordered to be removed from the university.

Macquarie University has been ordered to strip combustible cladding from a state-of-the-art campus building amid fears of a potential fire risk.

The Department of Planning has issued the university with a fire safety order in response to a site inspection which found combustible aluminium composite cladding panels covering sections of the university’s library at the Macquarie Park campus.

The department said the cladding was located on exterior walls of the seven-storey building which cost $70m to build and opened in 2011.

The state of the art complex is recognised as featuring Australia’s first automated document storage and retrieval system.

The fire safety order requires the cladding to be replaced with non-combustible materials along with measures to reduce fire safety risks until rectification works are complete.

The order was issued by the Department of Planning.

As part of the order, the university is also required to implement interim fire safety measures to reduce the fire safety risks associated with the cladding until the rectification work is complete.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for the University of Macquarie said it was “meeting all the deadlines and obligations under the Fire Order and legislation.”

The order was issued to Macquarie University.

The order comes as latest figures show 379 buildings across NSW are under review for external wall cladding or where remediation is underway as of February.

The figures are published by the NSW Cladding Taskforce which was set up in the wake of the Grenfell tower disaster in London in 2017.

The University of Macquarie said it could not disclose the estimated cost of replacing the panels.

The latest fire safety order is not the first time a university in Sydney has had to remove aluminium composite panels with remediation previously focusing on buildings including at the UNSW and the University of Sydney.

As part of the order, the university will have to provide an inspection report issued by an accredited certifier, certifying that the replacement panels and method of installation comply with the Building Code of Australia.