2019 New Zealand Building Industry Awards

NZIOB announces the winners of the 2019 New Zealand Building Industry Awards

The New Zealand Institute of Building (NZIOB) announced the winners of the 2019 New Zealand Building Industry Awards on Friday, 23 August at a gala evening at the Cordis Hotel, Auckland. This was the 26th year of an NZIOB awards programme, which celebrate and recognise the professional excellence of individuals and teams in the building and construction process, rather than the project or completed structure.

NZIOB Chief Executive Malcolm Fleming said, “The NZIOB congratulates all this year’s winners and finalists. These awards contribute to the NZIOB’s goal of improving the standing of the building profession by showcasing the commitment of those working in the sector to excellence.

This year’s GIB® Supreme Award was won by the Wellington team of Ben Whaanga and Nick Morris from LT McGuinness for their management of the Charles Fergusson Tower project.

The Judges said that the Charles Fergusson Tower threw-up some significant challenges to a young Project Manager/Site Manager pairing whose central philosophy was that they were the custodians of the client’s interests. This they practiced throughout the project; when unforeseen challenges arose, they looked at ways they could mitigate cost and programme blow-outs.

The client was won over by Ben and Nick’s commitment and approach. Projects of this scale, with these challenges, do not often come in on programme, or with relationships intact. That is not the case for Charles Fergusson Tower. This project has been a success because they care, are inclusive in what they do, open about the challenges, and lead from the front. From the judges’ perspective, Ben and Nick are young guns who smashed this project out of the park.

Ben Whaanga and Nick Morris also won the Allied Concrete sponsored Award for Cost Category Projects of $25M-$50M.

This year the judges awarded the BCITO Young Achievers Award to Matt Pattinson of LT McGuinness, Wellington.

Matt left school at 16 to start a carpentry apprenticeship. Early in his career, his talent was recognised, being a runner-up in both the 2009 and 2010 Regional Apprentice of the Year Awards. He started his career in residential construction and moved to commercial following an offer from LT McGuinness, the firm he has been with since 2009.

The projects that Matt has been involved in while at LT McGuinness have all been award winners. Along the way, Matt has developed a specialty in two areas: heritage and facades. On the former, his site manager role on the St Mary of the Angels project was notable. Along with managing 40-50 staff at any time and heading the site’s health & safety, Matt developed a public profile as a key contributor to the church’s programme to raise funds for the strengthening and refurbishment works. Matt completed a Bachelor of Construction in 2015 and won the Supreme Award at the NZIOB Central Chapter Student Awards that year. In addition, his final year’s research project won a Massey University award.

Matt’s most recent project saw him perform the role of facade manager on the PWC Centre in Wellington. Matt’s goal is to be a project manager of large and significant projects. Matt says, “I love setting the team up and watching them go to it. In team building, it’s all about honouring people, seeing their strengths and trusting them. The judges described Matt as a hardworking father (he has four children) who is passionate about what he does and who he works for.

There were four Excellence awards presented in the Cost-band categories:
• Resene projects under $1.5M Award
Winner: Graeme Biddick (Dominion Constructors)
Project: University of Canterbury’ Connon Hall Seismic Strengthening, Christchurch
• Carters projects $8M-$25M Award
Sean Ward, Conor Devaney and Hannes van Zyl (Brosnan Construction)
Project: The Lindis, Central Otago
• Allied Concrete projects $25M-$50M
Ben Whaanga and Nick Morris (LT McGuinness)
Project: Charles Fergusson Tower, Wellington
• BBD projects $50M+
Aaron Lindsay (LT McGuinness)
Project: Wynyard Central, Auckland

The James Hardie Innovation Award, recognising innovation in the industry demonstrated within a project or through an innovative new product or procedure, was won by a team from Icon Construction for a self-climbing enclosed jump-form system on the Pacifica apartment project in Auckland.

The Pacifica apartment project is a 57-story building with large floorplates, being constructed on a constrained site in the Auckland CBD. The combination of restricted site characteristics and a tight programme encouraged the project team to explore alternative building methodologies to the traditional tower-crane approach utilised in New Zealand. The decision to use jump-form was an output from the innovative culture that was implemented early in the project.

The jump-form system is widely used in Icon’s home market of Australia, though had not been implemented previously in New Zealand. This wasn’t just a matter of adopting an international building methodology, the reinforcing required to meet seismic demands in New Zealand exceeds those in Australia. The project team needed to reduce the jump-form load, and so additional loading bays were added. There were modifications and additions required to enhance the performance of the system, including the creation of a monorail system underneath the core. The Australian jump-form designer viewed Icon as having done an exceptional job of implementing and adapting the jump-form system into the New Zealand environment.

Configured in the manner that Icon did, the jump-form is best described as a ‘vertical factory’. The system carries the formwork for all the vertical elements (core and columns) along with the perimeter screens below. Working areas at the top of the system are fully shrouded for protection from the elements and the risk of items falling from height is eliminated. The jump-form system provides a work environment akin to working at ground-level. In terms of speed, Icon was able to complete a floor every week, a rate of production significantly faster than that achieved with traditional tower crane methods. The judges viewed the entry as being a team effort that stands as a testament to finding better ways to construct complex buildings.

The Metro Performance Glass Consultants Award was, this year, awarded to two practitioners: to Andrew Houghton, a project manager with Greenstone Group for the QBE Centre & Queen’s Rise project, 125 Queen Street, Auckland; and to Todd Riordan, a project manager with Johnstaff for the Christchurch Outpatients Building, Christchurch. Todd was also part of the team that won the Hays Interdisciplinary Collaboration Award for their contribution to this project.

This award recognises outstanding performance of design consultants (architects, engineers, quantity surveyors or project managers) who have contributed to the design, documentation and delivery stages of a successful project.

125 Queen Street is a 28-story tower constructed in the 1980s, which sits behind a heritage-listed 1840’s façade. The building had sat vacant for six years before being purchased by Winton Partners, who set about regenerating the property and transforming it into a Grade A office building. Early into the construction phase, it became very apparent that things were not going well. Not only was the construction well behind schedule, but the relationship between all stakeholders had also broken down, and the project was in disarray.

The client replaced the incumbent project manager with Andrew, who faced the daunting task of getting the project back on track. Inheriting a team culture that was described as toxic, one of Andrew’s first actions was to restructure the project team. He also based himself on-site to take over the project management of the fit-out works.

The judges said Andrew was tasked with coming into a project at its mid-point to rescue it. He rectified the many complex and difficult issues that existed and took total responsibility for turning the project around. He delivered an exceptional result, which at the time of his engagement, was looking like being an unlikely outcome.

The Hays Construction Interdisciplinary Collaboration Award, recognising exceptional examples of collaborative partnerships between consultants and contractor, was won by Mike Pearce (Hawkins), Todd Riordan (Johnstaff) and Guy Cleverley (CCM Architects) for their collaboration on the Christchurch Outpatients Building, Christchurch.

The key to the design and delivery of the Christchurch Outpatients Building was the collaboration of the design team and the extension of that collaborative culture to the main contractor following Leighs’ procurement. That the project team was not self-formed but assembled following an initial Government Electronic Tender Service (GETS) notice for the consultants, and a later tender for the contractor, makes the success of the collaboration the more remarkable.

The highly complex building was a challenge for all those involved in its realisation. The project brief was demanding - delivery to budget with no entertainment of cost overruns, a drop-dead handover date, arduous seismic and fire specifications, and a tight triangular-shaped site.

From the first day, there was a clear design vision that the design team bought into. Once the design was agreed, the team focused on aligning themselves to delivering the building within the tight programme.

What impressed the judges was that the project had an unwavering charter that the client, design team and contractor signed up to. This included them all committing to a finalised brief and then ensuring that the resultant design would be delivered to the site fully co-ordinated. To defend this strategy, there were occasions when the team rejected last-minute changes from the client if it was viewed that those changes would compromise prior work. The trust and non-adversarial dealings that occurred across all facets of this complex project were very evident.

Simon Barnes FNZIOB, the Convenor of the New Zealand Building Awards Judging Panel, said: “This year we have seen an increased number of entries in each category and once again the calibre of the people being judged by their peers is outstanding. I would like to thank the judges for providing; their time, enthusiasm, and expertise in selecting the winners of this year’s awards.

“The NZIOB recognises the support the finalists and winners have received from their companies, teams and families, which has enabled them to deliver world-class construction projects to their clients and the wider community.”

ENDS

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