Discover Responsible Design with Catherine O'Hare

[Catherine O'Hare] Good evening everyone. You may wonder why I started the speech in Gaelic. I didn't expect anyone to understand it. It's because this whole project started in te reo Māori, and this project was highly influenced by our work with Ngāti Toa Rangatira, our partnership with them and ESR Science. Obviously, I am as Pākehā as they come. I have no Māori blood in me, so it's important to acknowledge that from the outset. The work we've done through this project has come through a genuine partnership with Ngāti Toa, but also through the incredibly influential and important guidance from our Wairua Māori team, our Indigenous design unit. I really want to emphasise that this has not been me coming in and taking Māori design work and making it my own. I also want to acknowledge the wider design team and our subconsultants: Labworks, who undertook the laboratory design; Reset for landscape; Marshall Day for acoustics; Beca for structures and services; Stantec for fire engineering; Rubix as project managers; Hawkins, who are constructing the facility on site; and CLL, who are providing client-side management during construction. So, what is the project? It is effectively a 3,500-square-metre new laboratory building for ESR Science. ESR is probably more recognisable to many people as ESR, the organisation heavily involved during COVID. They are New Zealand's public health and forensic science organisation. They operate public health laboratories, forensic science laboratories, and innovation facilities. They play a critical role in public health, biosecurity, forensic science, and national responses to challenges such as COVID-19. The project is currently under construction. I should also note that it was a full BIM project. It simply could not have been done without BIM. If you look at the amount of services involved in the project, along with the complex geometry, particularly of the roof, it would have been impossible to coordinate otherwise. You'll also notice in the background of the image an existing ESR laboratory building. By the late 2010s, ESR recognised that science was changing. Increasingly, science was being conducted through collaboration between disciplines, and technologies such as robotics and genomics were growing significantly in both use and physical footprint. They couldn't realistically renovate their existing facilities quickly enough to accommodate these changes, so in 2018 they began developing a new building and engaged us to help deliver it. We were given a fantastic brief. The project vision was to create a fit-for-purpose scientific facility that would enable ESR to grow capability in emerging areas of science, technology, and research while providing flexibility to collaborate with others and respond seamlessly to future developments and disruptions. The building was intended to support hybrid working, shared laboratories, and new technologies while fostering a collaborative culture. A project-specific cultural engagement process with Ngāti Toa Rangatira was already underway to ensure te ao Māori would be embedded within the design. Environmental performance was also identified as a key project objective. The brief specifically challenged the team to look beyond conventional sustainability goals and seek opportunities for leadership. It was an exciting brief. Looking at the site before construction began, our site sat at the front, where a small white building was demolished to make way for the project. Porirua Harbour sits beyond the site in the distance. One of the key features of the site is an underground stream that runs along its entire length before crossing beneath the road. I mentioned earlier that cultural engagement played a major role in the project. One of the most interesting aspects was that the engagement process started before the design brief was completed. We hadn't drawn anything. We didn't even know exactly how large the building was going to be. We spent three full days in hui with Ngāti Toa, ESR Science, our Māori design team, and members of the project team. We travelled throughout the rohe learning about sites of significance, regional history, cultural values, and what was important to Ngāti Toa. We learned about the migration from Kāwhia to Porirua, freshwater systems, native eel populations that once occupied the waterways, and many other stories associated with the landscape. We spent a full day at Takapūwāhia Marae studying the artwork and learning about the tukutuku panels. We also learned how ESR had historically assisted Ngāti Toa in developing a specific dye required for some of that artwork when suitable materials could not be sourced elsewhere. There was a long-standing relationship already in place. This engagement process resulted in a cultural framework that became the foundation document for the project. It informed regular design reviews and ensured cultural values, tikanga, narratives, identity, and mātauranga Māori were appropriately expressed throughout the building. The process shifted the focus from simply designing a laboratory to creating a place of science that genuinely belonged in Kenepuru. One of the guiding principles related to innovation and surprise. The design themes were particularly important because we wanted to move beyond merely applying Māori motifs. Instead, the goal was to embed Māori architectural concepts directly into the building itself. This included ideas such as the waharoa, the mahau that provides sheltered transitional space and indoor-outdoor connection, the site being treated as a pā rather than simply a building platform, and the concept of the building as a waka huia, with the knowledge and scientific research contained within becoming the taonga it protects. The stream running through the site became the starting point for the entire design. Rather than beginning with the form of a building, we started by acknowledging the presence of the waterway. The building was designed to recognise the landscape feature instead of ignoring it. We explored options to daylight the stream and remove sections of culvert. While that wasn't achievable within this project, we planned the site in a way that could accommodate such work in the future. Water movement and wind movement through the site became organising principles. Human movement followed a different pattern, helping establish a transition from tapu to noa as people moved through the building. Laboratory spaces occupied one side of the plan, while seminar rooms, staff collaboration areas, and social spaces occupied the other. Between them sat a major visual connection aligned with the stream and the puna. One of the most innovative elements of the project involved making water visible. In a conventional building, rainwater disappears into gutters, downpipes, and underground drainage systems. On this project, we created a rainwater waterfall. The roof design gathers water and directs it to two locations. One of those is positioned beside the kāpātiki. A two-storey curved stainless-steel screen captures runoff from the roof, allowing it to cascade visibly down into a rock pool below. The water is then collected as part of a rainwater harvesting system and reused for irrigation and bathroom facilities. The system is both infrastructure and theatre. It transforms an everyday environmental process into a visible and understandable event. During rainfall, people can see how the building gathers and manages water. Building performance becomes observable rather than hidden. The waterfall screen also provides shading to the building behind it because it faces north. It can support planting and acts as a demonstration of the relationship between natural systems, environmental performance, and architecture. The most distinctive architectural feature emerged from the story of Rau Kawakawa. The concepts of the puna and the kawakawa represented care, nurturing, prosperity, healing, wellbeing, identity, and connection to the natural environment. Those ideas aligned strongly with ESR's purpose and with Ngāti Toa values. The kawakawa leaf became an important influence, although not in a literal sense. We weren't interested in copying the shape of the leaf. Instead, we focused on its qualities. Kawakawa provides shade. It shelters what sits beneath it. It collects water. It supports wider ecosystems. A healthy kawakawa leaf often contains holes, and that characteristic was also translated into the design. The roof became a device to create shade, shelter visitors, harvest rainfall, and support photovoltaic systems. Openings in the roof reflected the perforated quality of the leaf while introducing light and visual interest. The roof therefore became a major environmental component of the project. The building achieved a 5-Star Green Star Design and Build certification and became the first laboratory building to receive that accreditation. The architectural response centred around a large roof plane extending beyond the building envelope. It connected visually and functionally to the two major water collection elements, including the waterfall and a second rainwater collection feature along Kenepuru Drive. Like a healthy kawakawa leaf, the roof is punctured by openings at key locations. The roof extends in every direction beyond the building and is supported by tall, slender columns. These columns later became key cultural design elements. They were clad in stainless steel and feature contemporary interpretations of traditional carving through laser-cut artwork designed by Ngāti Toa artist Herman Salmond. Each column tells a different story. One references healing. Another references the environment, including Tāne Mahuta through imagery of birds and trees. Another tells stories of the puna, the harbour, and the moana. The edge of the roof was also a major design focus. We wanted to make it appear as thin and refined as possible. Once we had established the roof, the challenge became deciding what should sit beneath it. After a lengthy design process, we simplified the architecture and settled on a restrained façade consisting of horizontal bands and a central vertical glazed slot. The base of the building is dark and references the black cliffs of Kāwhia, grounding the building to the landscape and Ngāti Toa migration story. The white cladding references ESR's existing buildings and long occupation of the site. As the building extends around the site, the colours gradually blend into greys and silvers, representing the partnership between ESR and Ngāti Toa. The building is externally insulated throughout. We used Outright insulation across the entire envelope. At the time the project commenced, the complete system had not yet been developed, but we were able to work through the process successfully with council and encountered very few difficulties during consenting. That was particularly exciting for me because achieving a fully externally insulated building had been an ambition of mine for more than twenty years. When comparing the original renderings to photographs taken on site, the building looks remarkably similar to the vision developed during design. The underside of the large roof was also important because once the roof extends beyond the building, the soffit becomes a major visible surface. We used a Rhyno soffit system installed in a mitred pattern to create texture and visual interest. Another important cultural element is expressed through a fritted pattern applied to the glazing. The artwork was developed by Herman Salmond. We refined and tested a range of colours and options before arriving at the final design, ensuring the cultural narrative would be permanently embedded within the architecture. Finally, the roof system itself. The roof is a warm roof system using rockwool insulation rather than PIR insulation. When we began the project, the roofing system did not yet have a CodeMark certification. It achieved certification shortly after we submitted for building consent. We worked very closely with Nuralite throughout the process, speaking frequently to resolve technical details and ensure the system would perform as intended. Overall, construction has progressed extremely smoothly. Most requests for information on site have related not to the roof system itself, but to the complex openings within it. The roof appears simple when viewed from a distance, but it is actually geometrically complex. Every corner curves and every angle differs. The building structure ultimately became a steel moment frame. We explored a timber structure initially, but the extensive services required for a laboratory building meant the timber beam sizes would have been too large to accommodate all the services passing through the building. As a result, we adopted a steel frame while using timber as extensively as possible elsewhere in the project. The complexity of the roof geometry, particularly around the curved corners and openings, became one of the most challenging aspects of the design and construction process.