Building Design

Putting a building on a wharf is an unusual brief. The structure sits on piles over moving water, the wind comes from every side, salt arrives on every surface, and the public expects to keep walking past at ground level.

The Clyde Quay Wharf building, designed by Athfield Architects and opened in 2014, is a six-storey building that makes open reference to the passenger liners that once berthed there: a prow at the seaward end, a long deck-like promenade at first-floor level, and the spire and four wall mosaics carried over from the 1964 Overseas Passenger Terminal. Below the deck, the old wharf was heavily strengthened, with around 200 new piles and a carpark suspended underneath. The Greater Wellington historic heritage addendum report describes the wharf and building as closely integrated, effectively a single structure.

These pages look at design questions that apply to harbour buildings generally:

• A wharf street: the idea of a public street running along a wharf.
• Design philosophy: how a building can answer its setting.
• Quality and materials: what stands up to marine exposure.
• Technology and sustainability: energy, services and long-life thinking.
• Parking and facilities: bikes, cars and storage in waterfront apartment buildings.
• Acoustic performance: sound between homes, and from the harbour outside.

For the regulatory background, the Building Performance site published by MBIE sets out the Building Code clauses that every new building has to meet.