MEDIA RELEASE - Thursday, August 11, 2011
21 Queen Street wins 2011 Supreme Concrete3 Sustainability Award
Peddle Thorp Architects last night won the 2011 Supreme Concrete³ Sustainability Award for its work revitalising the
multi-storey office building at 21 Queen Street, Auckland, preserving its concrete frame and core while creating vibrant
and thoroughly modern spaces both inside and out.
The award, presented at the ninth International Symposium on High Performance Concrete Design in Rotorua, recognised the
'reuse - reduce' strategies adopted by the project principals, which enabled the building's life cycle to be
significantly increased, the embodied energy of its concrete elements to be saved, and the emissions associated with
alternative demolition and new build scenarios prevented - all key to achieving environmental sustainability in
construction.
Stripping the site's 14 level 1970's concrete structural frame of its cladding and fit-out, to form the heart of a
refurbished and modern building also underpinned the project's commercial viability, as well as breathing new life into
the urban environment around Queen Elizabeth Square.
The Awards, part of the Concrete3 initiative launched in 2007 by the Cement and Concrete Association of New Zealand
(CCANZ), acknowledge projects, products and initiatives which demonstrate excellence in environmental, economic and/or
social sustainability for the built environment.
On their way to the top prize, the team behind 21 Queen Street also received the Excellence in Commercial Concrete
Construction award.
CCANZ chief executive Rob Gaimster said that through the reuse of a concrete frame building the project met all the
economic, social and environmental imperatives of sustainable development, elevating it above a host of outstanding
entries in 2011.
"This example of adaptive reuse will quickly become the New Zealand benchmark for what can be achieved in terms of
optimum resource management, (embodied) energy efficiency and design potential, through the imaginative redevelopment of
our concrete structures."
Other category winners
The awards also produced winners in four other categories, for projects which excelled in different areas of sustainable
concrete construction.
Excellence in Concrete Innovation went to engineering firm Structex for the Southern Cross Hospital's Endoscopy Building
in Christchurch, which for the first time in New Zealand utilised post-tensioned concrete PRESSS (PREcast Seismic
Structural Systems) technology with U-Shape Flexural Plates. This innovative approach to structural engineering and
construction saw the medical facility, which has a Building Importance Level 3 classification, emerge unscathed from the
February 22 earthquake.
Excellence in Residential Concrete Construction was awarded to Daniel Marshall Architects for Elmstone House in
Auckland, a contemporary home which makes use of precast concrete over three floors to optimise a steep site and offer
comfortable, energy efficient and low maintenance family living.
Excellence in Concrete for the Community was won by Golden Bay Cement which is progressively replacing imported fossil
fuels with locally sourced renewable alternatives, such as wood biofuel, to help reduce landfill waste as well as carbon
dioxide emissions during cement manufacture.
Excellence in Civil Concrete Construction was awarded to Downer New Zealand for the DART 9 rail link station in Manukau.
Constructed under the Leighton Works partnership, this below ground facility, built entirely of concrete, used advanced
secant pile technology and specialised concrete mix designs to realise a vital piece of infrastructure for the wider
Auckland community.
ENDS