New Life for Christchurch's Gloucester St Apartments

Damaged in the Christchurch earthquakes, the 10-floor Gloucester St apartment building has been vacant since September 2016 for significant refurbishments and a state-of-the-art reclad. 

Working with façade engineers, HMOA has created a contemporary exterior façade that suits the building’s prominence and surrounding landscape. This new terracotta rainscreen tile system and metal panel cladding provides extremely robust fire protection. See more images and info here.

HMOA Christchurch Director, Duval O'Neill, says it’s a credit to the skill of structural engineer Craig Lewis that the building survived the earthquakes, “We were so fortunate to have Craig work with us on the repairs and refurbishment”. 

The building, known as ‘The Gloucester’, was originally designed by Christchurch architect, Alun Wilkie in the 90s. Post-modern in design, The Gloucester has been described as ‘iconic’ and has incredible views of Hagley Park, the arts centre, Cranmer Square and the art gallery.

On 9 March, the keys will be handed back to the apartment owners, including 98-year-old Barbara Hall. Like many of the owners, Mrs Hall has been resident in the building since before the earthquakes; she even bought her apartment off the plans. Other owners who had previously rented out their apartments are now looking forward to living there themselves to take advantage of the upgrades and the building’s location in the heart of a new city. 

The project team included: Andrew Wallace (Leighs Construction), Belinda Barclay (Crombie & Lockwood), Simon Howe (Crawford & Company New Zealand), Craig Lewis (Lewis Bradford Consulting Engineers) and Lewis Barclay (Rawlinsons).