Rau Paenga To Support Department Of Internal Affairs – Improving Access To Our Nation’s Taonga

Te Tari Taiwhenua Department of Internal Affairs is enlisting Crown infrastructure delivery company, Rau Paenga, to support the delivery of the new Archives building and the two-level link bridge connecting the new building to the National Library in Wellington.

The Archives building will provide a state-of-the-art archives repository and specialist facilities for TeRuaMaharaoteKāwanatanga Archives New Zealand, TePunaMātaurangao Aotearoa National Library of New Zealand and Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision.

Te Tari Taiwhenua DCE Te Haumi, Hoani Lambert says, “We’re incredibly fortunate to have such an experienced project design and construction agency on board, that were part of delivering the Christchurch rebuild, for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This partnership is a continuation of the partnered approach we have taken for the design and build of the new home for our national documentary heritage institutions that includes mana whenua and others.

“The capability Rau Paenga can bring to support these nationally significant projects includes a whole team of people with a cross-section of skills and tools, helping us to manage these complex and specialised builds efficiently. This includes customised tools for measuring, reporting, and managing project risk and benefit delivery.”

Rau Paenga will play an assurance role, to ensure that the design, build and commissioning achieves Department of Internal Affairs requirements to keep our nation’s taonga, archives and collections in the most modern facilities for conservation, care and better access for New Zealanders.

The two-level link bridge connecting the new Archives building to the National Library will allow staff, visitors and collections to move safely and easily between the three national heritage and recorded documentary institutions.

The new link bridge enabling structure and Archives building are currently expected to be completed in September 2024 and mid-2025 respectively, with the new building scheduled to open in 2026.

Rau Paenga Acting Chief Executive, John O’Hagan, says the Rau Paenga team welcomes the opportunity to help improve access to our nation’s taonga.

“With irreplaceable collections valued at $1.5 billion, constructing this new facility is a large and complex task. We’re eager to lend our expertise to the project to support the Department of Internal Affairs team to continue these build projects and focus on co-locating these three institutions to better protect our memory of government and taonga to best practice standards.

“We’re also committed to exploring other opportunities to work with the Department of Internal Affairs on other aspects of this overarching programme of work.

“Our Wellington team is also providing support to the recently announced 'Science City' research hubs project, and in Auckland Rau Paenga is working with the Ministry of Justice on the remediation of the Auckland District Court and with the Ministry for Primary Industries on the Plant Health & Environment biosecurity facility, so it is pleasing to see our skillset now being utilised across the country.”

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