In March 2023, the Winter Gardens were fully re-opened to the public following a complex two-year project to seismically upgrade and undertake major repairs and improvements to the glasshouses and wider site. The repairs and strengthening works were complex and required a number of changes to the structures, which have been carried out with the utmost care and attention to detail to ensure that the heritage values of the place have been protected and enhanced. This icon site has been conserved for the future. This has been accomplished on time and within the original estimates on behalf of Auckland Council.
During the scheduled site works to the Clock Tower, Salmond Reed also designed a photographic scrim for the major scaffold, which screened the restoration works, in order to provide an aesthetically pleasing backdrop and continuity of photographic opportunities during graduation ceremonies, a custom that is quite common in the cities of Europe.
Salmond Reed has developed intuitive digital reports for each building for the University to plan and programme the maintenance of the Heritage Precinct for the years to come: a series of interactive photographic elevations, maps and databases that analytically collected archival research, photographic surveys and observation of the condition of the fabric, assigning priorities of repair on a trade-by-trade basis, which can be kept as a live digital tool into the future.
