Waitakere Civil Defence Headquarters

Client:
Former Waitakere City Council

Location:
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

Completion:
2007

Size:
472m²

Project Value:
$1.8m

Contact:
Malcolm Bowes

This project involved the design of a new Civil Defence Headquarters for the former Waitakere City Council that is also capable of acting as a regional headquarters for greater Auckland in an extreme emergency.

Sited in a residential street, the project incorporates operations and communications rooms, offices for permanent staff, vehicle and emergency equipment storage as well as staff and visitor amenities. The building adopts the residential scale and form of its neighbours.

On a daily basis the building is occupied by up to 6 full time staff, who operate the facility, maintain communications and facilitate training. In the event of a civil emergency the building becomes an operations centre for up to 40 civil defence staff which includes regional police and fire officers.

In an emergency the building is required to be self contained for up to 5 days. To achieve this, water storage, foul water disposal tanks, solar power and a diesel generator have been included in the design.

In the Auckland region the risk of a volcanic eruption is significant. The building has been designed to withstand ash build-up and has a filtered air conditioning system to allow operations to continue in a sealed state during an eruption.

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