Building a Sustainable Legacy in Wellington

The New Zealand infrastructure industry is experiencing a culture shift towards a more sustainable focus. Getting it right and making the most efficient use of available resources is hugely important to the industry because of the long life of assets, and their interface with people both during construction and throughout their operational life.

Stakeholders involved in the construction industry, like engineers and architects, are always looking for ways to embed value within their projects. Sustainability, including environmental, economic and social, can offer real tangible benefits to construction projects by developing more innovative and durable products, infrastructure and services that make the best use of resources during the whole lifecycle.

When Wellington City Council (WCC) was developing its project brief for a new landmark indoor sports centre, sustainability was a key thread, right through the concept design to construction. It was essential to the success of this project to select the right partners who could deliver high-quality urban design, whilst also in keeping with the natural environment and mitigating the effect of what is by its nature a very large building.

Highly visible site

The Wellington Indoor Community Sports Centre on Evans Bay in Wellington is on the gateway between the city and the airport, in a highly visible but aggressive coastal environment. The project brief was to design a modern sporting facility that would meet the current and future needs of sporting codes such as netball, basketball and volleyball, while supporting emerging indoor sports, schools and the wider community.

WCC engaged engineering consultants Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) to design the sports centre, with support from architects Tennent + Brown. Construction of the $47.5 million facility, with sports courts covering 10,500 sq m, began in early 2010, with completion scheduled for August 2011. However, the integration of sustainable design into the project is already revealing substantial benefits for WCC and the wider community.

The indoor sports centre is located on a ‘brownfield’ site, formerly a coal-fuelled power-generation facility that itself was created from excavations arising from the creation of a route through to Miramar. Wellington itself is renowned for its seismic activity, so this added a degree of complexity to the design solution.

Sustainable design principles

The building incorporates environmental sustainable design principles – for example, the building is naturally ventilated and therefore requires no HVAC (heating, ventilation, airconditioning) within the sports halls. It is also efficient in energy and water use, with solar water heating providing 45% of the water heating requirements. The solar power, natural ventilation, dimmable fluorescent lighting and radiant gas heating equates to $164,000 a year in power savings against comparable facilities.

The design team also focused on incorporating high-quality building materials that give maximum value over the life of the building. The curved and faceted roof, resembling a shell, provides a 70-year life with little to no maintenance. This aesthetic as well as functional solution provides an expected saving of $22 million in maintenance fees over the 70-year period. In addition, the roof system has 60% recycled content and allows for high levels of natural light, greatly reducing power consumption over the facility’s life.

By introducing sustainability as a bedrock to the design process and keeping an eye on the bigger picture, the project team were able to provide workable solutions in all facets of the building. For example, the building is enabled to collect rainwater for toilets; the sports floor is sourced from sustainable timber; and public transport and car sharing is being actively endorsed and encouraged over single-passenger car use. A construction waste management plan was also put in place to ensure waste was recycled where possible.

A lasting legacy

Gary Jerome, SKM project manager, says, “SKM is proud to have been a part of the lasting legacy to the people of Wellington that this facility represents. It’s a project that excites us as designers, engineers and parents and sporting participants of the centre where we can say that we have made a positive contribution to the city of Wellington.”

A holistic approach was taken to the sustainable design of the sports centre, right from the ground up. The project’s legacy is in the sustainable out-turn with a whole-life cost saving of $33 million over 70 years, with only a capital cost increase of less than $1 million.

The success of the sports centre is a clear example of the triple bottom line win that can occur when engineers and designers think outside the box. The challenge is in incorporating sustainability, while meeting budget, time and resourceconsented constraints, something the Wellington its Indoor Community Sports Centre has achieved.
For further information, visit www.skmconsulting.com