Northland Toyota
Northland Toyota required a new showroom and workshop in central Whangarei. Working to unusually tight design and construction timelines we successfully delivered all aspects of the design. Due to the nature of our multidisciplinary office, we were able to fully co-ordinate architectural, structural, civil and geotechnical aspects at speed to successfully meet the client’s deadline and give them a completed building within nine months of their initial approach.One particular challenge on this site was the soft, compressive nature of the underlying alluvial soils in association with the restrictive time frame of the project. As there was no time to carry out pre-loading measures to accelerate settlement, the building’s structure and showroom floor was piled some 20m to the hard rock layer. The building has floating door thresholds which rotate to ensure that no step forms between the showroom and workshop floor and the settling external car-yard.
The super-structure comprises of a light-weight cold rolled steel frame with concrete panels and a concrete mezzanine floor.
Since this building was completed, Northland Toytota has expanded and Hawthorn Geddes were engaged to design another building on the site for the car grooming side of the operation. This building is insulated using Metalcraft PIR panels and fire rated Korok to provide a pleasant working temperature.