Kirkwood Avenue Hall, University of Canterbury

Kirkwood Avenue Hall is situated next door to the Canterbury University on Kirkwood Avenue. The building was originally a rest home, but our project was to convert it into student accommodation. Due to a delayed settlement, the construction programme was reduced to a tight 9 weeks.

The much-needed refurbishment was largely cosmetic, with a full re-paint and new flooring installed throughout the building. We also fitted two new commercial kitchens, along with new bedrooms and bathrooms. There were a number of services upgrades involved, including new plumbing fixtures and fittings, electrical switchboards, heaters, lighting, emergency lighting, mechanical extraction, data cabling and a fire alarm system, plus upgrades to the existing sprinkler system.

The asbestos in the building needed to be safely removed before the work could proceed, requiring a lot of coordination with the subcontractors and their respective packages of work.

We completed the project right on time for the students to start moving in for the new academic year.