| 3 T T Karen Phelps School project a worthy winner Cook Brothers Construction won the under $7.5m category at the 2026 Building People Awards for the Target Road School project. REGIONAL Cook Brothers Construction Auckland Cook Brothers Construction was proud to be recognised for its work at Target Road School in Tāmaki, Auckland with the project winning at the 2026 Building People Awards in the under $7.5 million category. The Ministry of Education expansion project was delivered under a design and build model, creating additional teaching spaces and upgraded facilities to respond to significant roll growth and improve the learning environment for future students, including those with special needs. Cook Brothers Construction project director Peter Lalin says the project’s success came from finding practical solutions to significant changes in its brief. “The project was particularly complex because we inherited a scheme that had already been fully designed and consented, only for the Ministry to reset its cost-per-square-metre expectations,” he says. Originally tendered at approximately $10million and later renegotiated to $9.5million the project was subsequently paused during the Ministry’s temporary capital spending freeze. When funding resumed Target Road School was prioritised putting pressure on the team to recover time and redesign the project to meet revised cost targets. Peter says Cook Brothers Construction managed to strip the design back to its fundamentals and maintain the Ministry Design Quality Learning requirements, acoustic and accessibility standards and the school’s expectations. A big part of achieving challenging timelines was designing a staged delivery approach. “This allowed civil works and in-ground services to begin under the original consent while the revised building design and consenting process progressed in parallel. This recovered valuable programme time and avoided an estimated three-month delay.” He says technical coordination also played an important role. “Early clash detection enabled building services to be coordinated through the structural steel, with penetrations pre-drilled during fabrication. “This reduced rework on site and improved programme certainty,” says Peter. Other project challenges were tackled early on to ensure the budget and project timelines were met. For example, the team also worked with the Ministry and consultants to find a practical solution for a mechanical system that exceeded the acoustic requirement by one decibel “The project was particularly complex because we inherited a scheme that had already been fully designed and consented, only for the Ministry to reset its costper-square-metre expectations.” at start-up only. Dispensation was secured, avoiding a more expensive redesign while maintaining compliant operating performance. Peter says collaboration was the key to the project’s success. “We did not simply issue a programme and expect everyone else to follow it. We brought the project team, trade partners and client into the planning process so there was shared ownership of what we were trying to achieve,” he says. Innovation also played a part. Target Road School was also the pilot site for Cook Brothers Construction’s use of Touchplan, a digital lean planning tool that improved visibility of constraints and encouraged accountability across the project. He says health and safety and wellbeing were always priorities. Strict separation from the live school environment was always maintained and the building was shrink-wrapped after the steel was erected to provide a clean, dry environment for the team and allowing work to continue in adverse weather. The site also hosted Mates in Construction. Sustainability was incorporated through natural ventilation, durable low-maintenance products and the reuse of site materials and stockpiled topsoil in garden-to-table planting beds. Completed approximately 10 weeks early Peter says the project exceeded client and end-user expectations and has become a benchmark for Cook Brothers Construction’s Auckland operations. “This project shows what can happen when people work together, challenge the obvious solution and take ownership of the outcome.” Cook Brothers Construction was also named a finalist at the 2026 awards in the categories of innovation, digital technology, collaboration under $20m projects, and health, safety and wellbeing. Aluminium Partitions | Suspended Ceilings | Acoustic Systems Commercial Interiors Specialist 021 024 838 01 info@idealfitouts.co.nz idealfitouts.co.nz
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=