16 | Haydn & Rollett Ltd: Carlaw Park Student Village Stage 3 REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT T T Karen Phelps Pre-planning key to project’s success This most recent stage comprises 203 apartments of four, five or six bedrooms delivering 907 bedrooms, plus ground-floor amenities including reception, laundry, common lounges, study and music rooms. It’s Haydn & Rollett’s largest construction project to date. Carlaw Park Student Village is the University of Auckland’s biggest purpose-built self-catered student accommodation and there was no room for the project timeline to be extended with students booked to move in for the start of the 2023 academic year. With Covid-19 thrown into the mix (the wider project started during the first lockdown in 2020), this presented significant challenges to the team, says Haydn & Rollett contracts manager Matt Bird. “It was a collective approach between developer and builder to manage the impact of Covid-19 and guarantee University needs were met, and completion achieved on time. Otherwise the University’s commitment to house the 907 students would have been under threat. We built under the premise that we had to target finishing on time no matter what.” Matt says this involved maximising the speed of construction and methodology from day one. “The biggest thing is that we realised in order to achieve the timeframe we couldn’t follow the conventional construction procurement methodology – design, procurement and start to build. So we brought on key subcontractors in the major areas early so they could essentially became part of the design team. That meant we got better information about how to build fast and efficiently.” Matt says that at each phase of building work Haydn & Rollett looked at what could be done to maximise speed and efficiency. For example rather than having one piling rig on site it had up to three at any one time to maximise output. With the structure Haydn & Rollett looked at ways this could be erected and the resulting solution was to use double height concrete shear wall panels, which allowed for the construction of two floors at a time. With regards to the cladding system 703 precast concrete panels were brought to site painted and with windows installed. “We also looked to overlap the fitout with the completion of the structure as much as possible. GIB was a scarce resource so we secured room in the their schedule six months in advance to guarantee supply over our 160 day delivery schedule. It was part of our philosophy to always invest a huge amount of effort into preconstruction planning to ensure risk areas are understood.” He says that because design had been integrated with the construction methodology these things could be achieved. “Because we had the key people on board early they provided valuable information. It was about looking at a whole suite of options and picking the right ones for the project.” With Carlaw Park Stage 3, Haydn & Rollett had now worked on developing the Carlaw Park student accommodation precinct, for over ten years, with apartment buildings redefining the skyline with towers ranging from 5 to 10 levels. Matt says planning and project management needed to be highly organised, ensuring staging, resourcing and subcontractor planning were all in alignment. This most recent stage comprises 203 apartments of four, five or six bedrooms delivering 907 bedrooms, plus ground-floor amenities including reception, laundry, common lounges, study and music rooms. As part of the mixed-use response to the site, retail space is also included at ground level. With a focus on longevity durable, robust fixtures and materials were used in the project. Matt says delivering the large project – according to him New Zealand’s largest single student accommodation project in terms of beds - ahead of time and on budget within the climate of Covid-19 was a huge achievement. “Haydn & Rollett managed to meet the needs of key clients and University of Auckland by creating this housing, which will help to alleviate Auckland’s housing crisis as otherwise these students would be flatting around the inner city suburbs where housing is scarce. “So it’s a sustainable housing model for students where they can walk or use public transport and be close to everything they need. It was an ambitious and satisfying project to be a part of.” Phone: 03 983 5500 waterfordpress.co.nz Find new clients with regular marketing in print media ADVERTISING IS GREAT FOR BUSINESS “We built under the premise that we had to target finishing on time no matter what.”
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