Great expectations
It has been said that 70 per cent of the success of a project is determined by the project planning stage.
With one completely new building, one heritage building to be restored, high expectations, groundbreaking designs and a 100 year design life, the success of the Supreme Court had to be set in concrete long before the foundation stone was laid.
For The Building Intelligence Group, this meant the Supreme Court's design management process had to ensure money was spent in the right places, the right design solutions found and ideas developed that could be executed. A good design management process should also improve how the building functions, help resolve issues whilst still maintaining architectural integrity and help reduce maintenance and running costs.
The foundation of every design management process is the right brief. However, when the brief was being created, the Supreme Court did not exist. With the institution in its infancy, consultation was even more critical than usual, in order to provide the requirements and guidelines for the design team with the greatest clarity.
The first step was to establish an understanding of who the different stakeholders were, and their interests and drivers. Then, once all ten parties had been identified and established where necessary (for example, the Cultural and Judicial Symbolism Group did not exist until the need was identified), they were involved in the project. The smooth running of any stakeholder management process is dependent on gaining engagement - setting up groups, taking briefs and identifying boundaries - and establishing where responsibility for approval lies.
"Stakeholders are always important but here they were critical to the project's success. With the work involved in the creation of an entirely new court jurisdiction, the constitutional importance given to the Supreme Court, and a design life expectation of 100 years; we only had one opportunity to get it right." Andrew Hampton, General Manager Higher Courts.
The key challenges within this process came from both the designs, unique in almost every aspect, and the expectations for the project - not only those of the client and public, but critically, those of the project consultants themselves. Project Director Ian Macaskill reflects on the impact these had:
"The expectations of every single party involved were paramount to the Supreme Court's success. However from a design management point of view they took very careful managing. Each consultant aimed to deliver the best possible quality and outcome, to result in a building aesthetically beautiful, functionally perfect, protective of its heritage values, green, completely secure and with services to the best possible standard. To achieve the desired standards there was very little appetite for compromise. We would have been disappointed if anyone had been willing to roll over too easily. Needless to say, we never had that problem."
Another significant element was the 100 year design lives of both the Old High Court building and the new Supreme Court. This is roughly twice the average, and as such brought its own challenges in terms of design and material selection. The design needed to be future proofed, able to be adapted - extra space is vital to allow the building to change over 100 years.
The final, critical stage within the design management process is ensuring the designs work functionally and can be built within the time and cost parameters. To answer the Supreme Court brief, the solutions were far from commonplace. Several pushed the boundaries - the curved stair, the orb shape of the main courtroom, bronze screen and tapering columns - meaning this stage required both kiwi ingenuity and time to allow the solutions to emerge. The extraordinary design of the main courtroom in particular illustrates what can arise when delivering something so unique.
The first challenge, a struggle between sound and sight, arose in 2007. Earlier acoustical analysis identified the domed design of the main courtroom could create echoes. With a design in hand to solve this acoustical problem, consultation was undertaken with law practitioners and the judiciary. At this point a new concern emerged - that this design could cause distracting 'visual vibrations'.
Another internal design was required. The 'kauri cone' concept Warren and Mahoney developed, led to the stunning interior we see today. However, although this concept resolved the threat of visual disturbance, to achieve the required acoustic standards would be far more complex. Historical pressure was added by articles from 1881 showing how media criticism was heaped on the 'villainously defective' acoustics of the Old High Court Building (then called the Supreme Court):
"...the acoustic properties of the new Supreme Court are wretched. Scarcely a word can be heard at any rate from the inconvenient place allocated to the Press..." NZ Mail, 16/4/1881, p. 15
To stop history repeating itself meant ensuring this new solution was acoustically sound. With the acoustical engineers in Australia, and architects in Wellington and Christchurch, the task for The Building Intelligence Group was to lead the team towards a solution, along the way balancing the often competing objectives of the different consultants.
Ultimately a successful solution was reached - to tilt each panel by slightly varying angles, perforate each with different levels of absorptive material, capture the sound up in the skylight and to hang loudspeakers.
At this point a further challenge emerged. Warren and Mahoney were in a position to provide working drawings to Jones and Sandford, the joiners working under Mainzeal. These drawings would enable them to create the 2,294 individually sized panels and ensure they would fit perfectly into the space.
Mainzeal identified they needed an unusually high level of accuracy from the working drawings for the computer cut joinery. With each panel slightly different to the next, absolute precision and exact dimensions in 3D were required. This challenged Warren and Mahoney to push their software far beyond its normal limits in order to generate the level of detail needed, and their extraordinary capabilities meant the joiners could use the new working drawings to generate each of the panels.
"Inspired by the organic shape and spiral pattern of the kauri cone, the courtroom was always going to be challenging technically, to design, draw and construct. 3D CAD programs and automated cutting make certain aspects of this kind of task easier, but the commitment of the whole design and construction team was required to ensure success. They all rose to the challenge very well and the built architecture is a testament to the team involved." Roy Wilson, Chairman, Warren and Mahoney.
Investing time upfront can save time and money and ensure the triumph of both form and function. For the Supreme Court this early groundwork was essential in ensuring the success of the project - having the right stakeholders engaged, working with the expectations of all involved, dealing with the unusual and making sure what was developed would deliver what was needed.
Acknowledgement
In THINK issue 8 we printed two renderings of the Supreme Court. These were courtesy of Stantiall Studio.
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