Fisher & Paykel’s new headquarters is rising fast, with Naylor Love – one of New Zealand’s billion-dollar builders – working to close the heart-shaped timber frame – which, all going to plan, will house the appliance giant’s administration, labs and testing facilities in Auckland later this year.
It comes as Luke Luijten, the Naylor Love project manager responsible for the $220m project – New Zealand’s largest to use mass timber – shared a montage showcasing its rapid progress.
Laying the foundations in May 2024, Wood Central understands truckloads of cross-laminated timber and laminated veneer lumber beams and columns began arriving at the site in August, with Mr Luijten revealing in October that crews were making “serious progress” on the installation.
Designed by RTA Studio, the 3-storey ‘home’ office is part of an award-winning 22,779 square metre masterplan and will use a “radical” timber diagrid design – which, like Scion’s Innovation Hub in Rotorua – will see the studio work with Red Stag’s TimberLab to develop an engineering system that uses less material and also creates greater stiffness and strength to withstand earthquakes.
According to Scion – NZ’s leading research institute for forest and wood products, the system uses diamond and triangle-shaped timber frames: “The diagrid LVL is fixed with timber dovetail node joints that transfer the loads and steel connectors that will deform in an earthquake.”
“(Our) testing found that, after an earthquake, the test building’s pre-earthquake strength would be restored by simply replacing the steel connectors that had absorbed the earthquake energy and deformed, while the engineered timber elements remained intact,” Scion said.
A past winner of the World Architecture Festival – Building and Technology awards – where it was recognised for its role in using mass timber to drive down emissions, the studio has been working with Māori to design the all-timber diagrid: “RTA Studio has engaged with local hapu, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, to discover and interpret the stories,” it said in a statement. “The concept motif of the flounder (pātiki),” the Studio said, “found in nearby waters, is depicted by Māori as a diamond shape.”
“This is interpreted here in the design of the diagrid structure and in patterns on the woven ‘cloak’ that wraps around the ‘home’, shielding it from the noise and wind of a busy street frontage.”
- To learn more about Naylor and Love’s role in building Fisher and Paykel’s new ‘home’ click here for Wood Central’s special feature from October 2023. And to learn more about Scion Innovation Hub’s timber diagrid – the first of it’s type anywhere in the world, click here.
