AUT WZ building fitout

Our 5,000 square metre fitout of the top four floors of AUT’s WZ building added office and study spaces, meeting rooms, break-out/café areas, toilet cores and lobbies. The high-end finishes include grooved plywood linings, Autex acoustic panels, timber floors in the kitchenettes and bespoke joinery with integrated services and AV. We also installed new services throughout, including roof-top mechanical chillers and AHUs.

We had a goods lift for smaller materials, equipment and personnel, but needed a way to get larger items up to the site without inconveniencing the staff and students on the lower levels. The solution we came up with was to remove some of the glazing in the central stairwell, install a loading platform on the 11^th floor and a small gantry crane at the top of the building, and lift loads up through the stairwell.

This inventive method, combined with plenty of out-of-hours lifting, was a great success, but the chillers and AHUs needed to get up to the roof from outside the building. This required meticulous planning, including a full road closure in the congested central city location and a well-coordinated lift plan involving multiple subcontractors, but went off without a hitch.

We completed the project during the second Covid-19 lockdown and during a time with increased lead times for almost all materials and equipment. Despite the disruption, we managed to hand over six days before the agreed completion date.