Baseline’s very first projects were in the design and implementation of mechanical and electrical systems for new shopping centres. These multilevel retail facilities with total construction areas of around 50,000m2 feature perhaps the greatest variety of mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems of any facility type. For example, the commercial refrigeration systems used in the supermarkets of these shopping centres have up to 150 refrigerated fixtures including display showcases, cool-rooms, food preparation areas and ice making machines. These fixtures need to run at different temperature ranges and those temperatures must be maintained within a tight range to ensure correct food safety standards.

Multilevel shopping centres also contain all manner of commercial kitchen equipment, food processing machines, travelators, goods and passenger lifts, a vast array of indoor and outdoor lighting fixtures, complex HVAC and plumbing systems and functional spaces as diverse as restaurants, office spaces and movie cinemas.

Shopping centres, and particularly the supermarkets contained within them, are also extremely energy intensive. Although we did not realise it at the time, working intensely on these types of facilities turned out to be the ideal opportunity for us to increase our experience and expertise across almost every technical discipline and system type. This enabled Baseline to apply this experience and expertise to other industries and facilities. For example, completing design and implementation of office, restaurant and warehouse projects was not at all difficult considering we had already done exactly that as part of dozens of shopping centre projects.