Situated in the stunning town of Kerikeri, the largest town in Northland and a popular tourist destination is Bunnings Waipapa.  Bunnings is a leading retailer of home improvement and lifestyle products, and a major supplier to project builders. The construction for this new 8,500 m2 Bunnings store was completed in 2023.

The development includes a large open plan retail space with rack storage systems, indoor timber yard and an outdoor building materials and landscape yard along with a loading yard.  It also includes 226 carparks, entrance and exit roads and an effluent field.

With our multi-disciplinary approach Kirk Robert’s fire, structural, civil, geotechnical, and environmental engineering teams worked together in an approach streamlining the project, improving efficiency and cost-effectiveness for the design, development and construction.

Proactive Fire Engineering Design and Management

Our fire engineer collaborated with the client and other designers from the early design stage and developed a coordinated building fire design solution, that met both the operation and Territorial Authority requirements.

Fire design was completed using the verification method C/VM2 with the use of fire and smoke modelling and evacuation calculation to demonstrate compliance.

Our fire engineers pro-active design and management approach along with timely consultation and advice helped to streamline both the fire design review and building design flow processes contributing to the success of this new Bunnings warehouse project.

Other disciplines involved in the project included our structural teams design solution that comprised of a reinforced concrete foundation system with shallow spread footings, strips and pads, reinforced concrete walls, and a suspended concrete floor slab for the mezzanine.

Kirk Roberts geotechnical experts undertook detailed geotechnical analysis and design of ground improvement to achieve the required support, while civil engineers completed the design of an on-site wastewater system using an alternative fire design.