Client: St Mary's College Auckland / McAuley Trust

Architect: RCG Architects

Service Engineer: Opus International Consultants

THE CHALLENGE

The building while on paper appears to be easy to construct was far from it. The access to the site was from one end with the building being 90m long and 14m wide sitting on the boundary on one side and 3m from the adjoining buildings on the other side. There was not much room to move. In addition to this, the roof fascia and gutters had 6 different changes in direction which lead to a difficult design to achieve the required look.

THE SOLUTION

Work had to be programmed carefully. This started with getting all the services in the ground prior to foundations being poured as once the foundations were in there was no access for machinery. As the project progressed, we had to ensure that all materials were delivered in order for future use as once we moved down the narrow passageway, which was the building site access to the end of the building ceased to exist. The complicated fascia and gutters were designed and resolved early with the structural design and then a few modifications on site produced the look that the architect was looking for.