Edition Parnell – A Dream Project
Edition is a timeless, elegantly designed apartment building which will be situated on Churton Street in the heart of Parnell. The architects are Monk Mackenzie, the interiors are by Bureaux and Edition was a well-deserved finalist in the 2017 World Architecture Festival.
Origin has been privileged to work with the development and construction business LEP Group on this remarkable building. LEP Group has had plenty of experience with offices, and public and retail developments, and in Edition the company will now be building a beautiful residential offering in an amazing location.
Lead fire engineer Sajeesh Nair was joined on the project by Origin team mates Wayne Joseph, who was lead on fire protection, and Jen Tang who worked on the fire engineering and passive fire safety design for the building. Sajeesh says it was a great project from the outset in that LEP brought them in early, seeking their expertise on all the preliminary compliance options, considerations for passive fire throughout and a comprehensive sprinkler design.
“LEP Group brought an exceptional eye and amazing attention to detail,” says Sajeesh. “The use of the intelligent 3D model-based process BIM (Building Information Modeling) provided the insight and the tools to efficiently plan and design the construction and the management of the building, modelling the running of all the services to make sure everything would function optimally. Their philosophy matched ours exactly, in terms of applying research, knowledge, expertise and quality-inspired judgement across the whole project.”
For Jen Tang, being able to communicate and consider loads of ideas and understand each other’s strengths and experience to deliver the best outcome for the project is making this a truly interesting project to work on. “The design team were so committed. They were great at communicating their extraordinary design and understanding how their concept could still comply with the Building Code.”
There were fortnightly design team meetings to update the team on the progress of the project. Jen says the greatest challenge for him was undertaking the fire engineering design. “While the design was based on the Acceptable Solution or what we call the prescribed or cookbook design approach, the real challenge was in working through how the extraordinary aesthetics of the building could comply with the requirements of the fire safety design.”
Wayne Joseph agrees the greatest challenge for the fire protection design was incorporating the design aesthetic into their thinking and planning. The design was based on the requirements of the fire sprinkler standard NZS 4541, fire alarm standard NZS 4512 and the fire services requirements. The challenge however, was to rethink about how the aesthetics of the building would be affected and still comply with the fire service’s access requirements and the requirements of the standards. A meeting with Fire and Emergency along with the owners and architect let us demonstrate how the design complied and gain their approval.
The Edition Parnell website describes … “a bold, contemporary building that confidently occupies the sloping site. The upper three levels are cantilevered above the ground, creating a beautiful profile with a sophisticated shape that enables view shafts from the street through to the harbour beyond. Edition’s façade is encased in Italian-made glass bricks.”
Wayne says, “the commitment of the design team made this a great project to work on from the start. The architects were great at communicating their exceptional ideas and worked hard at making sure that their design still complied with the NZ Building Code. Regular meetings and co ordination between consultants was outstanding.”
For the Origin team this was one of those dream projects.