Brisbane Square is 37 levels and 151 metres of mirrored glass on the corner of George and Adelaide Streets, and it is a working building in the fullest sense. Council staff at their desks, a public library at ground level, a plaza and a busway entry underneath, and George Street traffic on one side. All of it keeps running while the crew is on the glass above it.

We clean it on a quarterly cycle. Every visit is rigged off the roof, worked down the elevations in sets, and finished at ground level with water fed poles on the awnings, the library entry and the shopfront glass.

At a glance

Location

Brisbane CBD, 266 George Street

Services

High rise window cleaning, glass restoration

Access

Rope access off the roof, poles at ground level

Frequency

Quarterly

Photos

On site

Looking up the mirrored facade of Brisbane Square with two Abseil Pro rope access technicians on the glass — Two technicians on the mirrored elevation, 266 George Street.

View straight down the Brisbane Square facade to George Street with four rope access technicians on ropes — Four drops running at once down George Street.

Two rope access window cleaners at Brisbane Square reflected in the glass above the Brisbane River — Working the glass above the Riverside Expressway.

Two Abseil Pro technicians on the Brisbane Square glass under storm cloud, mirrored in the facade — Storm building over the drop.

Rope access technicians working inside the steel sunshade blades on the Brisbane Square facade — Inside the sunshade blades, George Street below.

Abseil Pro technicians on ropes at Brisbane Square above the heritage buildings of the Brisbane CBD — Above the old CBD on a grey afternoon.

Looking down on two Abseil Pro technicians working the Brisbane Square facade in early morning light — Early start on the George Street elevation.

Rope access technicians at Brisbane Square high above the Brisbane River and the Kurilpa and Victoria bridges — Two technicians above the river crossings.

Abseil Pro technician on rope at Brisbane Square with two of the crew working the glass behind him — Three of the crew on the same set of drops.

Technician rigged inside the sunshade structure at Brisbane Square with the Brisbane River behind — Working the blades above the river side.

Ropes running down the Brisbane Square facade with the George Street heritage precinct below — Ropes down the George Street elevation.

Rotary pad polishing staining out of a glass panel at Brisbane Square — Polishing staining out of a panel on the rope.

Abseil Pro technician cleaning the outside of a Brisbane Square window seen from inside an occupied office — Seen from a desk inside, mid morning.

Abseil Pro technician finishing a drop above the Brisbane Square plaza inside a cordoned exclusion zone — Landing zone cordoned off on the plaza.

Window cleaner using a water fed pole on the glass at the Brisbane Square Library entrance — Water fed pole on the library entry glass.

Abseil Pro technicians rigging ropes off ladders and roof beams at Brisbane Square — Rigging the drops off the roof structure.

The clean

Cleaning a building that never closes

The facade is mirrored glass wrapped in steel sunshade blades with perforated screens behind them. It is not a flat elevation a technician slides down. Every drop threads between the blades, and the panels behind them are the ones that show every mark from the street.

What the clean covers

External glass across the elevations, cleaned from rope

The sunshade blades and the screens behind them, worked from inside the structure

Awning and canopy glass over the George Street footpath and the plaza

Library entry, shopfront and ground level glass, cleaned with water fed poles

Staining polished out of individual panels where washing will not shift it

How a clean runs

Drops are rigged on the roof first thing, before the building fills up. The crew works down the elevation in sets, and the landing zone under each drop is cordoned on the plaza before anyone goes over the edge.

Most of the glass comes up with pure water and a squeegee. Where a panel has picked up something washing will not move, it gets buffed on the rope with a battery rotary and a cutting compound before the squeegee work, then cleaned as normal. The panels that need it are usually the same ones each time, high on the corner facing Adelaide Street and North Quay, where hard water staining keeps coming back.

How we get to it

Off the roof, into the blades

Site inductions are done before anyone arrives. Keys and roof access are signed out, ropes are rigged off the roof beams, and the first drops are on their way down before the plaza fills up for the day.

Working inside the sunshade

The blades sit off the face of the building, so a technician has to work inside the structure rather than hang clear of it. Each drop is threaded through, and the rope is protected wherever it runs over steel.

Below every drop is a public footpath, a plaza, a busway entry or a library door. Nothing goes down without a cordon under it, and the cordon moves with the crew rather than sitting out across the whole building all day.

How we leave it

Every tool tethered, and nothing loose carried on the rope

Cordons and signage under each live drop, moved as the crew moves

Hoses run clear of the entries and taken up whenever the crew is off the tools

Keys and roof access passes back to building management before anyone leaves

Roof doors locked and the building manager spoken to before the crew vacates

Photos uploaded the same day, so the record exists whether or not anyone asks for it

Challenges

What makes this one awkward

It is a public building on a public corner, and none of the ground under it is ours. The plaza, the footpath, the busway entry and the library door all have to keep working while drops are live above them.

The sunshade blades are the other half of it. They add hours to every elevation, because a technician cannot simply pass the glass, they have to get in behind the steel and work back out again.

And because the glass is mirrored, the standard is set from the street rather than from the rope. A panel that looks fine at arm length can read badly from the plaza, so the check is done from the ground before the crew packs up.

Outcome

What the building gets

A facade that holds up from the footpath. On mirrored glass the difference between a clean building and a nearly clean one is obvious from a block away, which matters more on a civic building than on most.

A quarterly cycle keeps staining off the panels instead of letting it set, and the handful that do pick something up get buffed on the same visit rather than turning into a separate job months later. Heavy calcification rarely comes off in one go, so buffing the same panels each cycle is what keeps the build up under control.