Victoria University, Boyd-Wilson Field Gymnasium

Wellington

Octa were engaged to review maintenance and development options for Victoria University's student union Boyd-Wilson field, changing rooms and gymnasium and provide a programme of improvement for implementation.  The gymnasium was constructed in the 1950s and had been very badly maintained since then, with rot, corrosion and deterioration to all of the building elements self evident.  With the initial engineers report it was almost a demolition decision.  The two major constraints were a very tight budget and a requirement to satisfy as many students as possible with the selection of the gymnasium sports floor i.e. multi-sport.  There is now an enormous variety of artificial sports surfaces available.  Each has its own strengths depending on type of sports anticipated with many surfaces one sport specific.  We roughly categorised the surfaces available into 1) artificial grass (short pile) 2) artificial grass (long pile) 3) resilient floor membranes 4) sprung timber floors.  The short pile artificial grass is suitable for sports where the ball rolls along the ground such as cricket and tennis and the long pile has impact absorption for sports such as rugby and soccer.  The resilient membranes and sprung timber floors are suitable for basketball and netball but have no impact absorption.  After much analysis a long pile artificial turf was selected that will facilitate rugby, soccer, league, volleyball, badminton, athletics, martial arts and general fitness activities.