©NZGBC

After a decade of talk and planning, the past year has seen a new building begin to rise behind Parliament to house a quarter of Parliament’s 120 MPs. It was originally conceived in 2014 …After the 2017 election, the project was put on hold …Finally, following the 2020 election, which saw NZ First out of Parliament, the project was resurrected. …it underwent significant changes as part of that process, project director Dave Wills says. …“The original design [from 2016] was concrete and steel …That was when we had the early decision in the re-kickoff of the project to go to New Zealand-grown and -sourced mass timber, structural timber systems,” Wakelin says. …the building is primarily made of gigantic frames of mass timber… While relying more heavily on the timber leads to far less climate pollution in its production than concrete or steel, using it for the structure of a building in this way comes with its own complications.