Project Takitini, Ohakea - Industry

Client:          New Zealand Defence Force

Project Brief

The Ohakea MSS facility will have the largest footprint of any building that has been constructed on a New Zealand Defence Force Camp or Base.
If travelling along State Highway One between Sanson and Bulls you may notice a tall orange tower. This is a parachute washing and drying facility which emerges out of the new MSS building or Maintenance Support Squadron facility Mainzeal is building for the New Zealand Defence Force at the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s Ohakea base.
Completion of the facility will allow the demolition of some 1930’s buildings, freeing up space for future projects.
The Ohakea site is located to the north east of the air field. The layout has been composed to create a central area of roads and parking bound by buildings to promote a feel of a large square campus.
The MSS will assist in the servicing and maintenance of parts of all of the Air Force’s aircraft. The workshops include facilities for hydraulics, skin bays, wheels and brakes, machine and metal shops, woodworking and composite shops. Non-destructive testing facilities are included along with fabric bays. The MSS building will also have X-ray facilities for inspecting airframes and other aircraft components.
The MSS building is 206m long and nominally 54m across. The spine corridor is 181m long and varies in form at access points to the various rooms and entries.
The building is constructed using precast panel wall components both internally and externally, supported on a steel portal frame structure. The metal clad roof will have access ways to service roof mounted mechanical services.
Alongside the MSS is the AFS or Aircraft Finishing Section which is fundamentally an aircraft paint and panel shop. The AFS will accommodate complete NH90 helicopters and Kingair fixed wing aircraft for preparation and painting purposes. Complete CT4E Air trainers and A109 helicopters will be painted in the AFS facility. Parts of other aircraft will also be painted in the smaller specialised paint spray booths.
Included in the complex are support buildings, one of which provides compressed air to the MSS and AFS as well as the completed No. 3 Squadron hangar facility nearby. There are also specialist buildings for storage.
The AFS building includes three sides of 150mm thick self-compacting concrete, which are 12m high and poured between precast columns. It has a free span concrete ceiling to the aircraft spray shops which doubles as a plant room floor for three air handlers. The front of the building includes access doors and an air chamber which receives the air from the air handling units for the paint shops.
Building services is a large component of the project and accounts for 45% of the overall project cost. It includes over 150 air handling units, associated duct work and fans overhead. The building is fully protected by sprinklers.
The project was started in January this year and is due to be completed in May 2012. Mainzeal has a team of project and financial managers on site backed up by our Central Region offices in Palmerston North. Currently we have at least 60 Mainzeal staff and subcontractors on site on any one day.
Ohakea is an operational air base and working in this environment requires a relationship of understanding and cooperation with the Air Force.
The buildings are to be fully 5 Star NZGBC rated under the Industrial category on completion and we have just had the design rating completed. This will be followed by the as-built rating and occupation rating.
The major components and challenges under this rating system for Mainzeal are in the materials section which includes using recycled steel, PVC minimisation, fly ash in concrete and replacing at least 20% of all concrete on site with recycled aggregate. The other main area we are responsible for achieving is a minimum of 70% of waste by weight to be reused or recycled. We are on target to achieve all of our Green Star goals for this project.