William Clayton Building

This was the world’s first base isolated building, designed to withstand earthquakes using lead/rubber bearings as an isolator and energy absorber. In an earthquake the building could move up 150 mm horizontally. It was built in 1972.

In 2014 Studio Pacific Architecture with Beca Engineering were given a brief to refurbish and extend the building. The building, which was a bit like a tiered wedding cake with smaller floors on the higher levels, has been extended by widening the upper floors, and adding another two floors added on top. In the process the original floor design which provided office interiors with varying degrees of privacy and interaction, a distinctive feature at the time, has been lost.

Changes have been made to the base isolation system to take account of the greater knowledge of earthquakes developed since it was first built particularly taking account the nature of shaking within a few kilometres of an active fault during an earthquake.

It is now privately owned but leased to the Ministry of Health.