Sustainability:

At Ruamoko we are very supportive of initiatives to adopt principles of sustainability in the construction of buildings.

We can contribute by offering alternative designs incorporating greater use of timber materials in lieu of steel materials.

We understand that sustainability principles extend for the lifetime of the building and beyond, and as such we work closely with architects and services engineers to incorporate structure with building systems that include passive solar heating concrete elements and insulated Thermomass concrete panels.

Our specialist services in seismic assessment, strengthening and retrofitting of existing buildings promote recycling of buildings as a whole, and we support initiatives to reduce material wastage during construction, sensible selection of structural materials that recognize the relative energy required to create them, and the reuse of recycled materials such as demolition concrete used as aggregate. In addition, as structural engineering is a paper-hungry industry, we incorporate strict in-house waste reducing policies in our office.

We realize that cost savings aren’t the only benefits of efficient structural design. By efficient and innovative design methods, we can cut down the amount of carbon producing materials such as steel and cement. Using these materials only where necessary reduces the global carbon footprint of the structures we design.

 We believe that smarter engineering such as post-earthquake “damage-avoidance design”, and innovation regarding changing and reconfiguring buildings without having to demolish forms a part of reducing a carbon footprint.

Grant Wilkinson is a member of a consulting team that is advising the DBH on the rewrite of the NZ Building Code (B1 Structure). As part of that task the code team will consider how best to incorporate the Building Act requirement, cl 3(d) ‘Buildings are designed, constructed, and able to be used in ways that promote sustainable development.’

We are pleased to work with clients that have a strong vision of sustainability, and have enjoyed working on green star rated buildings.