Multipurpose Building – Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s (MAF) National Centre for Biosecurity and Infectious Disease (NCBID), Wellington, New Zealand by Stephenson&Turner

Established in 1920, Stephenson&Turner (S&T) is a team-oriented, multidisciplinary architecture and engineering practice specializing in the creation of inspirational, environmentally sustainable solutions for clients in New Zealand, Australia, and other Asia-Pacific countries.

Fast Facts:

Architecture and Engineering: Stephenson&Turner (S&T)

Project: an award-winning multipurpose building at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s (MAF) National Centre for Biosecurity and Infectious Disease (NCBID)

Project Architect: Murray Robertson

Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Software used: Autodesk Revit Architecture, Autodesk Revit MEP

Since adopting Building Information Modeling (BIM) solutions, S&T has completed numerous projects, including an award-winning multipurpose building at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s (MAF) National Centre for Biosecurity and Infectious Disease (NCBID), located near Wellington, New Zealand. Designed to be the centerpiece of the NCBID campus, this one-story building consolidates all administrative and support functions in a single location, separating them from the facility’s laboratories. The completed building includes a formal reception area and administrative offices, as well as several meeting rooms and a cafeteria that staff can combine to form a large, multipurpose emergency response center.

To help ensure design effectiveness and environmental sustainability, S&T practices close collaboration among the disciplines from the earliest project stages—when design decisions have the greatest impact on sustainability and cost. That’s why the firm recently adopted a building information modeling (BIM) process supported by Autodesk Revit Architecture and Autodesk Revit MEP software.

The Challenge
MAF wanted to emphasize the building’s relationship to the natural environment, requiring S&T to incorporate natural building materials and harmonize the building’s layout with three large tōtara trees on the site. After reviewing the program requirements, S&T encouraged MAF to pursue 5-Star Green Star sustainable design certification, which corresponds to the USGBC LEED Gold standard.

The Solution
Initially, the design team formulated a sustainable design strategy that included high-performance insulation, passive solar construction, and a sophisticated natural and mechanical ventilation system. During preliminary design, S&T created a model of the architectural and building systems. S&T then leveraged intelligent information in the building model to assist in visualizing and simulating the building’s appearance and performance.

“BIM is instrumental in helping the clients—who are often unaccustomed to interpreting 2D information—to visualize projects in 3D and actively participate in optimizing building layouts and finalizing designs,” says Murray Robertson, the project architect from S&T. “Using Revit Architecture we rearranged rooms virtually, which helped us make better decisions in design and minimize change orders during construction. That was very important.”

Equally important was the use of Revit MEP to adhere to a passive solar strategy that required maintaining artificial lighting levels at or below 400 lux.

S&T designed a mixed-mode building that used two separate mechanical systems to naturally ventilate the building. The first distributed air from an underground pipe network throughout half of the building; the second distributed it from above. “On that half, the building lacked an overhead slab, so we built a platform where we could stack the air handling units,” says Warwick. S&T designed the complex layers of overlapping duct work and create easy-to-understand 3D cut-away views for use in construction.

S&T exported information from the BIM model to a third-party analysis application. “Being able to export from Revit software to analysis applications helped us further analyze performance and optimize the design,” says Warwick.

The Result
S&T completed the building in a timely manner and on a tight budget with BIM. The sustainable design strategies it pursued helped S&T remove the need for expensive climate control systems and surpass the rigorous standards of the 5-Star Green Star rating—a first for a government-developed building in New Zealand.

Categories: Government Building, Mixed use, Revit, Sustainable Design

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