New Zealand Commercial Design Trends Series NZ Commercial Design Trends Vol. 34/01C | Page 71

Below:The Otago Polytechnic
Student Village’s faceted exterior
creates interest and breaks down
the scale of the building visually.
Everything about the new Te Pa Tauira – Otago
Polytechnic Student Village reflects smart, modern
building practices and respect for the planet. The
facility is developed on a brownfield site, uses
advanced sustainable materials and was designed
and built following the guiding principles of the most
stringent of green architecture rating tools.
Designed by Mason & Wales Architects, project
managed by Logic Group, and with Naylor Love
the main contractor, the contemporary 231-bed
student acc ommodation comprises two wings.
The west wing has five levels of single and single
ensuite bedrooms, while the four-storey east wing
has a mixture of studios and four-bedroom apart-
ments. Woven between these accommodation
options are light-filled community spaces.
The student building was constructed with stone
pile foundations, a concrete slab ground floor and
external walls timber-framed and clad with a
weathertight XPressclad system, together with
Swiss Pearl coloured fibre cement and Gib.
And key to many aspects of this building, the
floors and internal walls were constructed using
innovative and environment friendly pre-fabricated
cross laminated timber panels (CLT). The product
is extremely strong and light – about one fifth the
weight of concrete – and also 100% sustainable.
Ian McKie, director, Naylor Love Dunedin, says
the pre-fabrication of the CLT elements meant the
facility was built significantly faster than if it was in
conventional concrete or steel.
“The CLT sections were prefabricated in Nelson
by XLam and assembled like a giant jigsaw in
Dunedin, with minimal propping required,” McKie
says. “In addition, the CLT sections required very
little drilling or cutting on site, making for a tidy,
quiet worksite.”
The choice of CLT brought some architectural
firsts for the accommodation building as well. This
was the first time laminated timber was used to
create a multi-level building in Dunedin and it is also
the largest laminated wood building, by volume,
and the tallest of its kind in the country.
“A major Otago Polytechnic driver for the project
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