Rubberware factory wins industry gong
Skellerup’s new dairy rubberware factory in Wigram, Christchurch, has been named the Supreme Commercial Project of the Year at a SkyCity event in Auckland.
The rubber manufacturer’s Project Viking took out the top gong at the 2018 New Zealand Commercial Project Awards, which are owned and run by the Registered Master Builders Association.
Other gold and additional category winners included a commercial fitout for Ma¯ ori Television in Auckland, the Manaaki By Mercy day-stay surgical facility and chemotherapy unit in Dunedin, the He Tohu exhibition at the National Library in Wellington, and Rydges’ restaurant and bar refurbishment in Queenstown.
The big challenges for the Skellerup team were the time pressure and constant structural changes throughout the design phase, the judges said.
Developer Calder Stewart Construction ran the five-stage project, which took more than 182,000 labour hours, building a massive
18,900-square-metre building that was functional and had room for future growth.
The $25 million venture required an innovative design, particularly in constructing the
1000-tonne tower to an ‘‘importance level 3’’ seismic strength.
As well as the Supreme Award, the factory also won the Industrial Project Award and the Value Award for a project over $15m. The development was managed with the use of building information modelling (BIM), a software tool that can be used by several people as the project evolves.
More than 25 per cent of awards entrants used BIM to manage their projects, Registered Master Builders chief executive David Kelly said.
Leighs Construction won gold, silver and bronze medals: gold in the Commercial Projects category in recognition of its work on the ANZ Centre in central Christchurch; and silver for city profile agency ChristchurchNZ’s new offices in the BNZ Centre in the Commercial Fitout category.
Leighs also took a silver medal for its Mars Airbridge project at Christchurch International Airport, and bronze for its Speight’s Ale House Tour in Dunedin.
The New Zealand Commercial Project Awards are sponsored by PlaceMakers, Altus, GIB, Allied Concrete, Construction Marketing Services and Carters.