Lund Central from Dunedin have been appointed to put in the road and main infrastructure (sewer, water tanks, geothermal field) as well as excavate the building platform and install the precast retaining walls for a new lodge in the Ahururi Valley - hidden on the Omarama side of Lindis Pass.

The old glacial moraine wall is a beautiful and rare site, and very exposed to the West coast weather with a temperature range between minus 16 and 40 degC. The scale of the valley is majestic and quite overwhelming so ‘no pressure’ to leave this magnificent place better than we found it-always a good test for any architecture endeavour. We were making good progress until the early arrival of snow.

So back to the shed to put together a full-scale prototype of the roof and test some of the construction decisions to build this ‘deformed composite’ gridshell structure. As well as assisting us to test a few innovative details with structural engineer Alistair Cattanach, the prototype process is also a learning curve for the subcontractors before they firm up on their pricing. We will need assembly efficiencies from prefabrication and good forward planning to build well on this isolated site.