Wellington Airport seismic upgrades

We were on site at Wellington International Airport for five years completing seismic upgrades both landside and airside to increase the airport’s earthquake resilience.

We completed our work in the International Departures Screening area at the height of Covid, with lockdowns and travel bubbles requiring constant revisions of our staging plans. We used removable ramps and security screens and repurposed storerooms as pathways to ensure that passengers could move through the terminal, planning each day’s work so each area was ready to be handed over for public use. The project involved building a connection between two existing buildings and extending the departures area to accommodate upgraded screening equipment.

In the Ansett terminal building, currently used for international departures and arrivals, we installed new raft slabs, shear walls, structural steel and level 1 slabs. Our Site Engineer was heavily involved throughout, using onsite surveying to finalise a design that was workable and cost effective. We minimised the impact on airport staff and passengers during the large scale, invasive strengthening works by carefully selecting machinery and equipment to reduce the noise and by working out of hours.

The EQ Stage 1 works involved fitting brackets to beams to support the Dycore (hollow core) concrete ceilings on two levels throughout the main terminal and southwest pier, often using a cantilevered scaffold to work over operational areas. Our Site Engineer and the consultants worked together to design bespoke brackets for hard-to-reach locations, working around services which often needed to be relocated. We completed much of the work out of hours and used a range of signage and hoardings to reduce the impact in public spaces. Each zone required dedicated investigations to develop a bespoke methodology, involving collaboration with numerous stakeholders leasing the areas.

Work in the parking building required careful planning and precise timing to ensure the safety of construction workers, airport staff – including the valet parking team – the regular taxi drivers and members of the public accessing the busy airport. The works involved the installation of new foundations, significant structural elements and hundreds of secondary steel brackets.

We almost became part of the furniture at the airport, entering the annual Cystic Fibrosis Christmas Tree fundraiser and joining in with their Pink Ribbon Day collection.