Fraser Thomas was engaged to assess damage sustained to the front of a dairy in Mangere, following an incident involving a vehicle colliding with the building and to provide design and construction supervision services required to remediate the building.

The reinstatement work involved partial demolition of one corner of the dairy, and construction of new reinforced block walls, foundation beams, floor slab, and block pilasters. The largest challenge in the job involved tying the new structure into the existing structure in an effective manner that met building code requirements but did not change the overall appearance of the building.

With geotechnical, architectural, and structural input, two concept solutions were presented to the client, followed by design of the chosen solution, and then supervision during construction. Typical with the nature of remedial work on aging buildings such as this one, a number of details required “tweaking” during construction to adapt to conditions discovered on site within a short time frame in order to prevent construction hold-ups.