On the face of it, this extension in Richard Pearce Drive, near Auckland Airport, was as straightforward as it gets: 3000-odd square metres of unenclosed warehousing – a breezeway, essentially – with a metal roof and sheet iron cladding, planted on a simple concrete slab.

But nothing’s ever that easy. The site is tenanted by a highly busy health logistics operator, with consignments of pharmaceuticals arriving from the airport and others being dispatched around the country in a constant flow. Allowing that operation to proceed unimpeded became the project’s primary challenge.