In collaboration with Beca and Aurecon, Jasmax has designed and is delivering the IL4 Central Plant Building (A40) and services tunnel for Te Whatu Ora Te Toka Tumai | Auckland. This complex, highly technical facility has been designed for a 100-year-lifespan and to withstand major seismic and other natural disasters, maintaining the supply of critical services to the entire Grafton campus – the country’s largest public hospital and clinical research facility.

Currently being constructed by McConnell Dowell and Built Environs, the project enables consolidation of primary services distribution and will become the most resilient and publicly significant base-isolated structure in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. The facility forms part of the hospital’s remediation plan to replace and upgrade critical infrastructure nearing the end of a 50-year lifespan. The new six-storey A40 Building will house chilled water systems, domestic water, medical gases, diesel storage tanks and new electrical generators to ensure clinical services remain uninterrupted.

The building structure will sit on triple friction pendulum-bearing base isolators and 18-metre-deep pile foundations and includes double-height spaces for the chiller and generator halls and a double-height cooling tower enclosure. It will be clad predominantly with precast concrete and include extensive acoustic screening. Also part of the resilience planning, a new 210-metre-long services tunnel will provide a below-ground connection between the Central Plant Building and the hospital’s A01 Support Building and A32 Main Building ensuring the continuity of clinical services in the event of a natural disaster. The project has also been future-proofed for a substantial health-focused data centre with independent energy and cooling systems.

Jasmax has led the design of various projects within Te Toka Tumai | Auckland, including the A32 Main Building, which at 80,000 square metres, was considered Aotearoa’s most complex health project when it opened in 2003.