CASE STUDY | MASON BROS BOX-OFFICE HIT CIBSEs international winner of its Project to the Year Award is an exemplary retrofit, in which new offices have been carved out of the shell of a 1920s warehouse. Andy Pearson finds out how the Mason Bros building in Auckland, New Zealand, exploits passive design and digital technology to minimise building energy use before, and during, occupation T he Mason Bros project does not have any revolutionary technology or world-first innovations; from the outset, there were no grand objectives (or the corresponding budget) to demonstrate world leadership in sustainable design yet this is what we achieved, says Anthony Calderone, technical director, built environment, at Mott MacDonald. The scheme gained the accolade Project of the Year International at the CIBSE 2020 Building Performance Awards. Judges were highly impressed by the building getting the highest possible ratings for energy performance from the New Zealand Green Building Council. It is the first adaptive reuse building in New Zealand to achieve a 6 Green Star for as-built design, and a 5.5 Star NabersNZ rating for the effectiveness of the operation of the building. The judges said the project team had excelled in getting the fundamentals right. The building services have achieved great results by applying existing technology and methods well, rather than by reinventing the wheel, they said. What makes the buildings sustainable achievements impressive is that this is not a purpose-built low energy development; before its imaginative transformation into a multi-tenant office building, Mason Bros was an industrial warehouse, built in the 1920s. 20 August 2020 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Aug 2020 p20-24 Mason Bros.indd 20 24/07/2020 16:18