We were commissioned by Auckland Council to provide 2 large, new, state-of-the-art propagation glasshouses to support the Auckland Domain Nursery. The existing nursery has been on that site since the beginning of the century, proving a heritage overlay, along with established trees and hazardous soil conditions. All these factors proved a challenge for the design team.

The result was a simple design with large structural members and complex services throughout. The Glasshouses operate a sophisticated computer controlled irrigation, heating and ventilation system and is compartmentalised into a number of areas – each of which have automatic thermo-controlled spray misting, heating, sunlight shading, and herbicide spraying – depending on what they are growing.

Water is filtered and recycled through a series of biofilters & pumps underneath the building which are all monitored from a small control room. Roof stormwater is stored in large tanks onsite and recycled to water the plants. Special glass, which has a specific ultraviolet coefficient was imported from Holland and used throughout the building.