University of New South Wales Major Refurbishment Program
Supporting growth through strategic campus refurbishment
At a glance
Preparing for a new generation of students means making better use of the campus UNSW already has. Through adaptive reuse, the University’s Major Refurbishment Program is transforming more than 25,000 sqm of ageing and underused space into modern, efficient teaching and workplace environments—creating the capacity needed to support projected Semester 1 2028 enrolments and its future academic needs.
The Challenge
Spanning 17 live operational buildings, the program requires careful programming of user relocations, delivery pathways and site access, supported by a coordinated approach to stakeholder management. Interdependencies between projects add complexity, while many buildings are more than 50 years old and contain latent conditions, deferred maintenance and compliance issues.
Delivery must be carefully sequenced to maintain teaching, learning and research activities across the live campus while meeting a fixed completion timeframe ahead of Semester 1 2028.
Our solution
RP Infrastructure works closely with UNSW to integrate program-wide planning, programming, risk management, procurement and stakeholder management across all 17 buildings.
Our campus-based team of nine project managers brings the depth and experience needed to assess each project against its scale, risk profile and delivery timeframe. This enables priorities to be set across the portfolio and a tailored procurement and delivery approach to be applied to each site.
Through structured functional briefing and clear communication, the team identifies issues early, understands program impacts and helps UNSW make timely, informed decisions. When site conditions or changing requirements call for acceleration or a revised approach, the team updates the delivery strategy while maintaining alignment across the broader program.
Five sites have been completed, with the remaining 12 scheduled for delivery in 2027 ahead of Semester 1 2028.
“RP Infrastructure has quickly understood UNSW’s processes and standards and has mobilised a strong team that has worked collaboratively with UNSW in planning and delivering an ambitious and complex program of works.“
– Geoffrey Lim, Portfolio Delivery Manager
“By bringing the depth and experience of our campus-based team to program-wide planning and delivery, we are helping UNSW modernise key facilities while maintaining the teaching, learning and research activities at the heart of the University.”
– Alex Jellie, Project Director