The Dunedin Law Courts building is over 100 years old and holds a Category 1 Heritage listing for the entire building while sitting on an archaeological significant landscape. Following the Canterbury earthquakes, the Ministry of Justice carried out seismic assessments of its court buildings and discovered a significant structural issue with one of their oldest buildings. Our brief was to make the landmark building a safer and more structurally sound icon of the community while also upgrading the interiors so the building could operate as a modern court. The building façade is made up of a mixture of Oamaru and Port Chalmers Breccia stone, with a tower on the Stuart Street side. The interior has 3 courtrooms centrally located though the building with offices and waiting spaces on each side.

Our role was to provide Lead Design, Architecture and Heritage Services for this Ministry of Justice project that would guide the Seismic Upgrade of Dunedin’s Historic Law Courts building. This multi-award-winning project, covered complex and extensive façade repair and interior refurbishment.

Our initial work was a detailed survey, inside and out of the complex. For the interior, we were asked to understand how the building worked and were given a brief with expectations for internal functional changes. For the exterior and heritage elements, we completed a detailed, stone-by-stone façade assessment recording typical and atypical issues. To understand the dimensional issues, a point cloud survey was also undertaken.

A previous renovation project in 2000, had caused significant damage to many of the heritage features requiring a significant amount of specialist craftsman input to remediate specialist elements.  The building also had weather tightness, heritage masonry and thermal issues which required various façade treatments from complete lead flashing replacement and redirection of poorly designed surface water issues, allowing a longer lifespan of the delicate heritage stonework.

Major internal intervention and modernisation included replanning of all support spaces so they functioned to modern requirements. The heritage court spaces themselves were also upgraded with features such as specialist acoustic ceilings and upgraded lighting, AV & data systems. Original courtroom joinery was completely removed and stored safely for reinstation whilst internal strengthening works took place.

Being a heritage building, any thermal upgrades need to appear as invisible as possible. A study of the building’s envelope indicated there were no significant condensation issues so minimal internal insulation would be effective. Heritage windows were reglazed so they had effective double glazing even though the heritage glazing was kept in place. Externally, there was evidence of frost heave in areas that high moisture levels. To remediate this, we removed the moisture issue by ensuring the contributing factors were mitigated.

Awards
We are extremely proud to say this project has won a number of national awards including NZIA and Property Council awards for Heritage Architecture & a Property Council award recognising the work of a highly effective Project Team - recognising the very successful delivery of this special project.

People 

Dennis Chippindale 

Nikki Thebault

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