Builder digs deep for telco

Mansons TCLM at work. Photo / Greg Bowker

Excavation work for the new $250 million Telecom national headquarters in Auckland was harder than expected.

Two years ago, New Zealand Post left its Victoria St West site and moved to its new purpose-built mail-handling depot at Highbrook business park, East Tamaki.

Mansons TCLM, developing, building and owning Telecom's new four-building campus, then started demolition work and earthworks.

"The excavation took longer than we expected," Luke Manson said of work on the site bounded by Victoria St West, Dock St and Hardinge St.

Mansons construction manager Gary Young said rock-breaking equipment was used to crack up concrete pads in the former NZ Post buildings but then specialist equipment was needed once excavation got below Dock St where Mansons has built some of the vast 300-vehicle underground parking spaces.

"It's really hard sandstone and we had to use a digger with a pick on the end," Young said.

High levels of construction site efficiency have been gained by the use of a pneumatic concrete pump which straddles the quad. Concrete trucks from Holcim park in a floor beneath this pump and their load is sucked into the pump which swivels on the site and pours concrete floors.

A 45,000-litre underground holding tank for rainwater recycling and 300 carpark spaces have been developed in vast underground areas which span the entire 7800sq m site.

Jim Robb, Telecom's head of corporate property, said the communications business sought big design changes on the new buildings.

"When the proposal first came from Mansons, it was for four separate low-rise buildings on the site. We [said] we wanted linking bridges and a central atrium to bring it all together. Their reaction, with a smile, was 'you're nuts'. It pretty much blew them away.

"We've effectively asked them to turn four buildings into one otherwise it would not have done anything for us. By turning this into a campus and opening it up - that's the secret to its success," Robb said.

Telecom and Mansons TCLM worked with Carsten Auer at Architectus to create links between the buildings via glazed airbridges and central gathering points and a glass atrium roof to tie the four structures together.

As well as architectural changes, engineering redesign was needed to address issues such as air conditioning and fire cells, all of which was done by engineers Beca for Mansons.

NEW HQ
* New offices for 2500 people.
* Telecom shifting next year.
* 30,000sq m of new space.
* Rising up to eight levels.
* Telecom lease is for 12 years.