Christchurch patricians the Stewart family have unveiled an engineered timber and glass design that will replace the quake-damaged Princess St office of its business Skope Industries.
Skope chairman Robert Stewart said his family would own the three-storey building and lease one floor to their refrigeration engineering company for corporate offices.
The post-tension timber building, using Canterbury University-designed laminated veneer lumber, was supposed to be built by now-defunct Mainzeal which had planned to tenant the remaining two floors.
It had been designed by architect firm Warren and Mahoney for the family, based on glass facades that were to be sourced by a Chinese glass factory owned by Mainzeal.
It was going to double as a marketing tool for Mainzeal to show off the post-tension timber technology through the glass facade, he said.
The timber building fully encased in glass will instead be a statement of innovation for Skope Industries, Stewart said.
Warren and Mahoney were adjusting the design so it could be built with different suppliers.
Stewart hoped Skope engineers could partner with long-time supplier Metro GlassTech to find "a clever way" to solve the problems a building completely encased in glass would pose, as he wanted to eschew louvre temperature and sunlight controllers.
He hoped to start building as soon as possible.
