Mount Albert Grammar School

As an accurate reflection of Auckland as a whole, Mount Albert Grammar School’s population has been steadily increasing over time. As a result of this growth, the school required a new Science block to be constructed on the school’s existing tennis courts. The project brief outlined the desire for a two-story block housing twelve classrooms and additional teachers’ resource rooms. The gross floor area was 1646m2, which encompassed 10 specialist classroom laboratories, two general teaching spaces and the aforementioned teachers’ resource areas.

Schools are sources of holistic education, where learning does not occur only in the classroom. As the new Science block was constructed on the existing tennis courts, Greenstone Group were also responsible for creating six new tennis courts on the school field.

Before Greenstone was enlisted, the conceptualisation of this new science block was an arduous journey full of unwanted inertia and a lack of clear communication. The project had stopped and started numerous times over a long and drawn out period. Unsurprisingly, the consultant team were feeling dismayed and disengaged with the process. Enter Greenstone Group.

Greenstone Group recognised the existing issues for key personnel and spent considerable time remobilizing consultants and getting momentum back into the design programme. As in all facets of human nature, the key factors to success here were clarity of information and transparent communication. Greenstone ensured close communication occurred with key stakeholders, Ministry Of Education (MOE) and the Board Of Trustees (BOT). Together, we set key programme deliverables and timeframes, ensuring expectations on the scope of work were realistic and achievable. The success at this stage of the process was confirmed when the project was delivered on time and to budget.

As we acquired the project halfway through the Developed Design stage, there was little scope for innovation. Coupled with this, the project was required to adhere to MOE quality standards within a tightly managed budget, leading to many parts of the process requiring strong problem solving skills. Greenstone were responsible for a wide variety of the project’s strands. These areas included client liaison, interface and stakeholder management, design management from the Developed Design stage, project strategies, project leadership, project reporting and programme management, procurement method and procurement of the main contractor, contract management. Again, juggling these myriad aspects required superior communication and organisational skills, which Greenstone Group undoubtedly exhibited.

Due to the stop/start nature of this project before Greenstone’s involvement, uncoordinated sets of documents were a risk. Thus, we actively reviewed paperwork to facilitate coordination of consultants’ design documentation. As part of this compliance process, Greenstone Group identified all possible project risks and provided mitigation options in case of the possible becoming a reality.

With Greenstone Group’s expertise, the project evolved from an inert concept stuck in the Developed Design stage to a successful building ready to nurture our nation’s next generation of scientific minds. The impressive Science facility was delivered on time and to budget, providing students and staff of Mount Albert Grammar School with an impressive and world class facility for teaching and learning.

This success could not have been achieved without an accurate and realistic programme that Greenstone Group established from the outset of their involvement. This allowed key deliverables to be met and a transparent and collaboratively constructed plan adhered to. This ensured MOE and BOT were able to plan for the future of Mount Albert Grammar School and its rangatahi.