Old Meets New Head On For Tuhoe

Old Meets New Head On For Tuhoe

Innovative new building practices will provide a living legacy to Tuhoe’s boldness and its lead contractor Arrow International’s ability, as old standards are crushed and traditions incorporated into Tuhoe’s revolutionary new headquarters, New Zealand’s first Living Building.

Now almost half way through, work on Te Uru Taumatua, the new headquarters of Tuhoe in Taneatua has stepped up a pace as the construction team strive to make the end-of-year deadline for New Zealand’s first Living Building.

When finished the building will be New Zealand’s most environmentally and socially sustainable building by a country mile. The building will be triple net zero (energy, water, waste), employ the most sustainable materials available world-wide and incorporate much of what Tuhoe stands for, yet still be built to withstand earthquakes and anything else New Zealand can throw at it.

Tamati Kruger, chairman of Tuhoe, says the building is a big deal for Tuhoe and for New Zealand. “This building reflects Tuhoe’s hopes for its own and for New Zealand’s future. Like Tuhoe, it challenges the way things have been done and puts a mark in the ground for the possibilities of the future.

“Even as we we’re working to conclude our settlement with the Crown, we have been focusing on making sure this building meets its targets and is embraced by not only Tuhoe, but by all the people in this district, our partners in the Te Ureweras and the wider New Zealand public.

“We are now half way through the build and it’s not only meeting all our objectives to incorporate everything that’s important to Tuhoe and the objectives of the Living Building Challenge, it is surpassing them.”

Details include:

·         Sourcing the wood for the build – this needed to be sourced from Tuhoe’s own forests, but under the terms of the Living Building requirements native timbers couldn’t be newly harvested unless they came from a forest approved by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) who monitor and advocate sustainable forestry and milling. Because of this the team had to source down-and-dead timbers to use. A dedicated, new Tuhoe-Arrow staff member spent two weeks in Te Urewera’s sourcing accessible and appropriate timbers, which were then milled on site and given to ’transportable miller’, Black Forest to refine. These are being used for the cladding, flooring and some wall linings.

·         Ensuring everyone has a role – 5000 earth bricks are needed to create internal walls that will regulate the moisture and temperature within the building. Earthbricks are hand moulded, so the Tuhoe- Arrow construction team adopted the ‘many hands make light work’ philosophy and created a sustainable construction process to complete the work.  10 local Tuhoe people were trained in the art of earthbrick making and hired for three weeks to train and monitor over 150 volunteers who produced the required bricks over a course of 3 weeks. Each day groups of people flocked from as far as Australia, Tauranga and Ruatahuna to lend a hand, as well as local businesses, schools and hapu. This way, even untrained, un-licenced non-builders could play their part in construction process.

In addition, where possible work is being given to local contractors, even if this means employing several contractors instead of just one (which would be the norm) to ensure as many Tuhoe as possible have a role in the build and can learn about new techniques and come up with their own novel ways to meet the Living Building Challenge.

It is also planned that local schools will help to propagate native plants that will be used for landscaping and the building’s new edible garden.

·         Using novel building techniques and materials - wherever possible, new environmentally-friendly techniques designed with New Zealand in mind are being employed: for example, a novel post-tensioning system, where a steel rod is driven through the inside of the main structural wooden piles and linked to a post-tensioned rod in a specially-designed central wooden column to allow the whole building to move in the event of an earthquake. These were designed by TTT Structural Systems and structural engineers MLB Consulting in consultation with Arrow International’s construction team.

“Right from the beginning, Tuhoe has encouraged all involved to push the boundaries and do things differently,” says the project’s manager Jeff Vivian from Arrow. “It’s exciting, but pretty testing too. We have a dedicated person on site whose main role is to help contractors adapt to this new way of thinking; to analyse everything they do, to reject materials that are not sustainable and find better alternatives they can use.

“The guys on site are doing an amazing job, especially keeping everyone calm when they suddenly find they can’t use the same glue they’ve always used or have to change a process that they’ve always followed. It really is changing business practices in this industry and it’s amazing to watch it happen.”

Next month the solar panels will be fitted, this will be the largest photovoltaic installation in New Zealand. They will also be used to heat the unique hot water system. The roof is currently being fitted and the earth bricks are about to be installed. Tamati Kruger has selected seven artists from across the county to produce art works suitable for the new building and reflect Tuhoe’s hopes and aspirations for the building.

ENDS

© Scoop Media