News
Work on the Museum of Southland has reached a major milestone, with one year now passed since the physical construction began on-site.
The large-scale museum, being built in Invercargill’s Queens Park, is steadily taking shape. Invercargill City Council Senior Project Manager Haydyn Taylor said the one-year mark was a significant point for everyone involved in the project.
“On any given day, we’ve got between 40 and 60 tradespeople here. It will really be business as usual on-site, but it is a pretty cool occasion to chalk up in the back of your mind,” he said.
He highlighted some of the more satisfying milestones reached so far, especially those with high visibility. “The most satisfying elements of a build like this always tend to be the large, visible items: in this case things like pouring the concrete for the floors, installing the concrete precast panels around the west building perimeter – we’ve got 50 panels, each weighing around 11 tonnes – and craning in the structural steel to finish off the bones of the structure.”
A major design feature of the new museum is a double-hulled waka that will appear to float in mid-air in the main foyer. Taylor said having the steel framework in place to support the waka had made a big difference. “It’s given us a real, tangible sense of just how show-stopping that feature of the museum is going to be,” he said.
He added that while plenty of work still remained, it was rewarding to take a moment and reflect on what had already been accomplished.
Naylor Love Project Manager Nick Jones said the team’s main focus heading into the final quarter of the year was making the structure weather-tight. This involved finishing the roof on the eastern building – which will include a café, retail area, education space, and offices – and completing the exterior cladding, windows, and doors.
Meanwhile, the west building was moving into internal works, including services installation and lining of the exhibition spaces.
“There is a genuine point of pride on-site, that what we’re all involved in bringing to life is a significant project for the entire Southland community – not just today, but for the generations that follow as well. It’s quite a privilege to be involved in its development,” he said.
