Price Waterhouse Cooper Building

As A RESULT OF THE CATASTRPHIC 2011 CANTERBURY EARTHQUAKE AND utilising multiple techniques to deconstruct the largest structurally damaged building in new zealand

 At 22 storeys the earthquake damaged Price Waterhouse Coopers building (PWC) in the Christchurch CBD suffered unrepairable structural damage to its outer 1.2m square beams and columns resulting in the doomed for demolition.

Complete with a basement carpark structure and 22 mixed use office / retail and cafe floors above, the PWC building was home to over 500 workers.

The structure was completely cluttered top to bottom with all manner of equipment, including workers personal effects, which Nikau made the effort to pack and remove for safe return back to owners, or, as in the case with much of the office furniture and equipment, these were donated to local charities and schools; all with owners permission.

The full 22 level structure was completely soft stripped back to the structural shell using 1.7t tracked skidsteers and manual labour.

Due to the unstable nature of the structure and the surrounding environment, the first six floors had to be "cut and craned" using a 250t and a 280t crawler crane simlteneously, while the surrounding environment was prepped with the installation of over 1.5m of road protection gravel to allow for Nikau's 220t demolition ultra high reach dubbed "Twinkle Toes" to mobilise to site safely without risk of damage to extensive underground service networks.

Fitted with a 5.5t attachment and at a height of 50m, Twinkle Toes made easy work of the remaining structure to basement level.

All concrete was crushed onsite and hauled to Portlink development park to be used as backfill.

The total duration of the project was 10 months.

To view The Press article of the PWC Deconstruction - Building Destroyers 30.09.12

To view Nikau's video on Vimeo of the PWC Deconstruction please click on the following link https://vimeo.com/77768153