Project Cost: $30M
Client: Fulton Hogan Ltd
Project Director: Grant Wilkinson, Cameron MacPherson
Project Description:
Ruamoko Solutions was chosen by contractor Fulton Hogan as structural design engineers on one of the largest and most complex projects completed by Ruamoko to date - the seismic retrofit of the landmark Christchurch Art Gallery building with base isolators.
The project involved the installation of 140 triple-curvature friction pendulum bearings below the ground floor of the existing Art Gallery Building. These base isolation bearings significantly reduce the seismic actions transferred to the building in an earthquake, greatly improving the expected performance of the building and its valuable artwork in earthquakes.
The base isolation design ensures that the building can move up to 550mm in each direction during a large earthquake. The actions from the isolators, including the large eccentricities, induce significant actions on the existing structure different to its original design. The retrofit covered a wide range of column strengthening, beam strengthening, wall strengthening, seismic joint rattle spaces, cover plates, suspended lifts and stairs and many other unique aspects. Together with the tight timeframe and construction constraints, the project provided many structural challenges for the Ruamoko Solutions team and required a high level of innovation and specialist knowledge.
Ruamoko Solutions won a Silver Award at the 2016 ACENZ Innovate NZ Award of Excellence for their work on this project.
Grant Wilkinson was project director for the original construction of the Christchurch Art Gallery project whilst a director at Holmes Consulting Group in 2003.
Project Cost: $5M
Architect: Three Sixty Architecture
Project Director: Julian Ramsay
Project Description:
Ruamoko Solutions strengthened this iconic Christchurch building to a minimum of 80%NBS, having previously completed strengthening work in 2008 to 33%NBS. This earlier strengthening work performed well and ultimately prevented the collapse of this building in the Canterbury earthquakes and has allowed it to continue to remain an iconic part of the built environment in Christchurch.
Commissioned to provide a 67%NBS scheme, Ruamoko Solutions performed a sophisticated non-linear time history analysis and managed to get the building to 80%NBS with minimal extra work.