Sale Lane is a new commercial building currently under construction at 46 Sale Street, Auckland — a location now thriving with activity and new buildings. The seven-storey building is set to provide high quality office spaces in the Auckland CBD, and is equipped with two underground carparks, a large lobby and a ground floor café. Built to sound environmentally sustainable design principals, it has a NZGBC 5-star rating and uses the highest quality building materials.
To provide the seismic strength and acoustic performance required for the office ceilings, Mansons TCLM Limited specified Knauf's DONN® DX® Seismic Grid system with 1200 x 600mm MARS™ ClimaPlus™ ceiling tiles throughout.
“I was quite impressed by how easy the DONN DX Seismic Grid system was to put together – as well as the bracing. The system is very robust and easy to build,” Waleed Numan, Site Engineer, Mansons said.
Future proofing tenancy fitouts
Knauf MARS ClimaPlus ceiling tiles produce excellent noise reduction (NRC .75) and have a solid 35dB CAC minimum rating to ensure exceptional balanced acoustic performance. The tiles are robust, sag-resistant and easy to clean – and were simple to install within the DX Grid system. The advantage of the 35 CAC minimum rating is that it futureproofs tenancy fitouts when new offices need to be formed or altered, where the office partitions only need to go to ceiling height and will still retain interoffice privacy.
The DONN DX Seismic Grid system features a quick-release cross-tee clip, which reduces the need for additional wires, clips and fasteners when designing for seismic performance. The grid can easily be adapted to changes to tenancy walls – making it an ideal choice for office and retail applications.
Amazing support
Knauf supplied full PS1 and PS4 Design Certification for compliance with the NZBC seismic requirements of the installation, which used approximately 10,000m² of grid and tile. Knauf representative Brian Mossong also made regular site visits to check on the installation and offer advice on correct seismic installation and integration of the ceilings with the services.
"The support is amazing. Brian was always there to answer questions, and if there were any issues, he knew how to resolve them," Numan said. "There were a couple of unique circumstances where we had clashes with services. In these situations we brought in Brian and the Knauf engineer who were very proactive in coming up with solutions that didn't require much rework or cost involvement."
Knauf's involvement from the design stages right through to installation helped simplify Numan's job. "There wasn't a need for constant monitoring of the installation, as a site supervisor," he says. This resulted in fast and easy installation of a seismically robust ceiling system, which comes with the peace of mind of Knauf's 30-year grid and tile warranty.
"I highly recommend it," Numan added. "If I had the choice, I don't think I'd consider using anybody else."
