Design engineer takes star role

THE high level of community interest in the new Victoria Point cinema complex, now under contruction, put Sheldon resident John House in the limelight after a weekly church meeting.
Members of the group asked when the cinemas would open.
A member of John’s family pointed to the quietly spoken design engineer, who soon became the centre of attention and under siege for a "please explain".
"It was a bit amusing really," John says.
"They didn’t know I was involved in the project and when they did, the message was, ‘Come on, put your back into it and get the job done. We want those cinemas before Christmas’."

THE partner in the Cleveland consultancy Hendriks/House, after receiving a message that apparently came all the way from the top, could happily report that the job was now progressing well and the opening was expected about March.
John said this week the project had required a lot of the expertise he has acquired in 30 years as a design engineer.
"The site was difficult,’ he said.
"It had a history of various types of uses, for instance, for sand extraction as a type of quarry and also, we think, as a concrete-batching plant.
"There was stuff in the ground all over the place, various obstructions, pretty much lumps of concrete, which were broken up and used as fill."

A TEAM comprising John, two structural designers and a civil designer, worked on the nine-cinema complex as part of the Victoria Point Lakeside development of Redlands company Fox and Bell.
Hendriks/House has operated in civil and structural engineering in the Redlands for 13 years, after both partners left another company to start their own business.
The consultancy, with John based at Cleveland and partner Mat Hendriks at Morayfield, has had a long association with Fox and Bell.
The two firms have worked together on projects including the Redlands Bay village about four years ago and, in the late 1990s, the commercial development at Wellington and Shore Streets, Cleveland.

HENDRIKS/House advertised twice this year in our Classifieds for a design engineer to join its team.
The recruitment effort found a qualified engineer almost in the consultancy’s own backyard. Paul De Weger, of Alexandra Hills, joined the Cleveland office in September.
(This column has appeared in the Redland Times, Cleveland, Redland Shire, Queensland, Australia)