As the Christchurch rebuild continued after the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, MSC worked with Athfield Architects and Hawkins Construction to deliver one of the signature sports developments: the new office building and high performance facilities for the Canterbury Rugby Football Union.
The single storey high performance building for the Canterbury Rugby Football Union (CRFU) was developed using an existing portal frame structure provided as a temporary facility after the earthquakes. The new two-storey 1,200m2 office building houses the CRFU administration. With both sited at Rugby Park in St Albans, development of the complex enabled rugby players and coaches who take part in the Crusaders’ international high performance training programmes to return to Canterbury rugby headquarters for the 2015 season.
The structure, with the two buildings sited adjacent to each other at 900 and linked by a full height atrium with staircase, consists of strip and pad foundations, ground-bearing concrete slabs, steel columns and floor beams supporting a Comflor composite concrete flooring system, with steel purlins supporting the roofing cladding.
“We were pleased to be asked to undertake the structural engineering design and documentation for this post-quake project,” says MSC director Anil Krishnan. “It allowed us to take to completion the temporary training facility that the CRFU has used for the previous four seasons. The complex as a whole now provides not only state-of-the-art training facilities, but an office building that I am sure will oversee many Crusaders and Canterbury Rugby successes.”
