Lyttelton Dry Dock Pump House

The original Dry Dock Pump House at Lyttelton Port of Christchurch was demolished in 2011 due to earthquake damage, with Naylor Love commissioned to build a larger, modern two storey replacement in its place. The new structure is predominantly timber, LVL and moderate structural steel atop a ring foundation, and was built on top of the still operational pumps.

The ground floor consists of a workshop, a new distribution board for the VSD and leakage pumps, and a concrete topping slab encasing the remnants of the original footings. The first floor consists of an office, kitchen, bathroom/w.c., and a membrane deck with access hatch to enable removal of the ground floor pumps by crane.

The building intentionally achieves an industrial and marine aesthetic, with Espan cladding, chain downpipes and COR-TEN weathering steel.

This project presented a number of challenges—the close proximity to the dry dock edge required careful negotiation with up to 150 harbour staff, the pumps needed to remain operational and accessible as we built the new pump house over them, and the use of cranes and heavy machinery needed to account for limited access to all faces of the building—but the project was completed successfully and looks great.