Waterloo Hotel and Backpackers, Wellington

The Waterloo Hotel and Backpackers is a seven-storey heritage building located on the corner of Waterloo Quay and Bunny Street in Wellington. Constructed circa 1935, this concrete frame building has several deficiencies that are typical for this construction date, including unreinforced masonry partition walls, undeformed reinforcing and unreinforced beam-column joints. Following current NZ assessment guidelines, the beam-column joints severely limit the strength and ductility of the building due to the deficient detailing.     

Through testing of a prototype model, Miyamoto was able to show that the strength and ductility of the concrete frame is far greater than what the assessment guidelines suggests. A strengthening solution to 90%NBS with only minor works is proposed, including FRP and steel plate shear strengthening to some beams and sawcutting the façade along columns on the inside of the building without compromising the aesthetics or weathertightness.