Pool Demolition and Detailed Excavation, JW Marriott Gold Coast

30 June 2026

Perfect Contracting removed a suspended concrete swimming pool from the JW Marriott Gold Coast Resort & Spa, excavated the ground underneath it, and poured the footings for what was going in next. The work was done for SHAPE Australia as part of the resort refurbishment, with the building still open and guests still in it.

The pool was not a free standing structure. The building started life as a hotel and the pool had been built into it, so the concrete was tied straight into parts of the building that were staying. That is the difference between knocking something down and cutting it out.

We took the whole package. Cut the pool free, demolished it, excavated, poured the footings. One contractor, one crew, one set of insurances. SHAPE did not have to bring an excavation contractor in behind us and wait for them to mobilise.

What made this one difficult

A pool in a back yard is a day's work. A pool that is part of the building is a different job altogether.

This one sat on a suspended slab, in a tight waterfront corner of the resort, with occupied rooms and operating restaurants around it. The reinforcement ran continuous into the structure being kept. Hit it with a hammer and you are loading and cracking the part you are supposed to protect.

On top of that, access was poor, the resort stayed open the whole time, and the area had to be handed over clean and ready for the next trade rather than left as a pile of broken concrete.

The constraints we worked to:

Live resort, guests on site, noise and dust kept under control.
Suspended reinforced concrete tied into the retained building.
Tight waterfront access with no room for large plant.
Retained structure to be protected, not just avoided.
Programme fixed around the rest of the refurbishment.
Clean handover straight into follow on trades.

Cutting the pool free of the building

Before anything was demolished, the pool was cut away from the structure it was attached to. That was done with a combination of wall saws and wire saws.

Wall sawing gave us clean, straight cuts through the slab and walls where we could get a track on. Wire sawing did the rest, the deep sections and the awkward corners where a wall saw cannot reach and the reinforcement is too heavy for anything else. Between them we put a defined line between what was coming out and what was staying.

Cutting first rather than breaking first is the whole trick on a job like this. Once the pool is separated, demolition stops being a risk to the building and becomes a controlled removal of a lump of concrete that is no longer connected to anything. Vibration monitoring ran through the works so we could see what the retained structure was actually feeling rather than guessing.

The cutting side is a specialist trade in itself. Our sister company handles it day in day out, see concrete cutting in Brisbane and South East Queensland.

Taking it down with a Brokk 200

The demolition itself was done with a Brokk 200 robotic demolition machine.

The Brokk is remote controlled, so the operator stands back from the work instead of sitting on top of it. On a suspended slab with a retained structure beside it, that matters twice over. The machine is small enough to get into the pool shell, it applies its force exactly where you point it, and nobody is sitting in the seat if something moves.

Compared with running an excavator and a crew of blokes with jackhammers, robotic demolition on this job meant:

Less weight on a slab that had to stay standing.
Precision at the interfaces with the retained building.
Operators out of the high risk zone.
Far less hand held breaking, which means less noise and less vibration for the guests.
Steady production in a space too tight for conventional plant.

The concrete came out progressively, in pieces sized to be carted through the resort rather than dropped and dealt with later.

Detailed excavation, same crew, no second contractor

With the pool gone, the hole underneath it had to be taken out to level and profile for the new build. That is detailed excavation, not bulk earthworks. You are working to a drawing, in a confined space, around services and existing footings, in a building that is still trading.

Most demolition contractors stop at the demolition and hand the client a hole. The client then goes and finds a civil contractor, waits for them to price it, waits again for them to mobilise, and carries the gap in the programme and the risk at the interface between the two.

We did the excavation ourselves with the same crew and the same plant that was already on site. No second mobilisation, no second set of inductions, no argument about who left what behind.

Detailed excavation sits alongside our demolition work, see our demolition services and civil construction.

Footings poured and the area handed over

We then helped pour the footings for the new structure.

That is past the point where a demolition contractor normally walks away, and it is deliberate. By the time we are excavating to a set level we already know the ground, the services and the levels better than anyone who turns up afterwards. Carrying on into the footings removed another handover and another week from the programme.

The area was handed back clean, level, set out and ready for the follow on trades to start, which is how it should be left.

Plant and equipment we used

Everything on this job was chosen to be small, quiet and precise, because there was no room for anything else and there were guests fifty metres away.

Brokk 200 robotic demolition machine.
Wall saws for straight structural cuts.
Wire saws for deep and heavily reinforced sections.
5 tonne excavators.
Electric dumpers, no diesel fumes through the resort.
Posi track loaders.
Vibration monitoring equipment.

Electric dumpers are a small detail that made a real difference. They let the crew cart demolition waste out through covered and occupied areas without filling them with exhaust.

What we delivered

Structural isolation by wall sawing and wire sawing.
Suspended pool demolition.
Robotic demolition with the Brokk 200.
Temporary propping coordination.
Vibration monitoring.
Detailed excavation to level and profile.
Footing pour assistance.
Waste removal and recycling.
Clean handover to follow on trades.

How it went

The pool came out, the excavation was done to line and level, the footings went in, and the resort kept trading the whole way through. The client was very happy with it, which on a job in a live five star resort is the measure that counts.

Recorded on the package:

No lost time injuries.
No structural incidents on the retained building.
No environmental incidents.
No disruption to the wider refurbishment programme.

Difficult and detailed demolition on the Gold Coast

This is the sort of work we want more of on the Gold Coast. Not clearing a block, but the jobs where the demolition is tangled up in a building that has to keep standing and keep trading.

Hotels and resorts, hospitals, shopping centres, occupied commercial buildings, plant rooms, basements and pools. Anywhere the easy answer of a big machine and a wide swing does not apply, and the job comes down to cutting accurately, demolishing in a controlled way and leaving the structure around it untouched.

We are set up for it. Brokk robotic machines, sawing capability in house across the group, our own excavation crews, and the licences and insurances to carry a package from demolition through to footings without handing the client off to somebody else halfway through.

More on what we do in the region: demolition contractors on the Gold Coast, full building demolition Gold Coast and demolition contractors across Queensland.

Questions we get asked about jobs like this

Can a pool be demolished without damaging the building it is attached to?
Yes, but not by breaking it out. The pool has to be cut free of the structure first, normally with a combination of wall sawing and wire sawing, so the reinforcement between the two is severed on a controlled line. After that the demolition is just removing concrete that is no longer holding anything up or tied to anything that is.

Why use a Brokk instead of an excavator?
Weight, reach and where the operator is standing. A Brokk 200 is small enough to work inside a pool shell or a plant room, light enough to sit on a suspended slab, and remote controlled so nobody is on the machine in the risk zone. On an open site an excavator is quicker. Inside a live building it is often not an option at all.

Do you do the excavation as well, or just the demolition?
Both. We run our own excavation crews and plant, so on jobs like this we demolish, excavate to level and profile, and carry on into the footings. It saves the client a second procurement, a second mobilisation and the gap between two contractors.

Can you work while the building stays open?
Most of our work is in occupied buildings. It changes the method rather than the outcome. Quieter plant, electric where we can, staged works, dust and noise controls, and a programme built around when the client can give us the area.

Do you cover the Gold Coast or only Brisbane?
Both, and the rest of South East Queensland. We run out of Slacks Creek in Brisbane and work the coast from there, as well as Sydney and New South Wales out of Marrickville.