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Telecom Tower on Albert St in Auckland has become the first refurbished building in New Zealand to win four-star Green Building Council award status.
Construction material was recycled out of the high-rise office block and energy-efficient features were installed, making it the most environmentally friendly renovation in New Zealand, according to the council.
The building, developed by Chase Corporation in the 1980s and for many years called the Simpson Grierson Building, has set a new milestone.
For decades, developers and builders have been dumping demolition materials from old buildings into giant skips but the Telecom job was different.
Developer Andrea Steffensen, director of McS Group, told an environmental building conference in Auckland yesterday why her firm's project at 92 Albert St won the award.
Steffensen said that over an 11-month period, the 20-level tower was upgraded to meet environmental standards and a large portion of the building was leased to Telecom on the condition the building qualified for a green tick.
So skip-loads of demolition materials were sent off to be used again.
More than 15,000 tonnes of glass, 14,000 tonnes of steel and 15,000 tonnes of aluminium were recycled as the building got its makeover.
Copper, wood, insulation, cardboard, plastic, wallboard and other materials removed from the tower were recycled, she said.
Thread-bare carpets from the office floors were ripped up and put to new use as farm weed mats. Insulation was removed and re-used in low-cost housing in the Far North, she said.
Even the high-wattage light fittings were sold on the internet, replaced with energy efficient lighting.
The block was heavily partitioned so these walls were stripped out and recycled.
Refurbishing the 11,000sq m building rather than demolishing it was itself a factor which made it eligible for the green star, Steffensen said.
MCS installed many energy-saving features, using rainwater harvested from the building for toilet flushing and sensors to detect movement in urinals to trigger only intermittent rather than continuous flushing.
Being near public transport, using high-performance glass to limit solar gain in the foyer area, installing energy-efficient long-life lighting and providing tenants with gauges so they could monitor electricity consumption were other aspects she described.
Providing facilities for tenants to recycle waste, fitting new instantaneous non-stored hot water systems and putting in efficient air conditioning systems were other aspects which allowed the building to win the award.
But Steffensen said her firm was forced to import specialised low-consumption water equipment from Italy because that was unavailable in New Zealand. Finding paint which met environmental certification provided another problem.
