1The Auckland Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT) is a treasured Auckland venue, popular with children and local, national and international visitors. When MOTAT needed a new display hall to showcase an impressive collection of aircraft, they called in the expert team at Holmes Consulting to design a structure that would do justice to their exceptional exhibits.

2One of the key requirements of the structure was for a large clear span space, similar to the design of an aircraft hangar. But, while a hangar often lives and dies by its functionality, MOTAT also needed the structure to be visually and atmospherically compelling – a space where visitors feel engaged and inspired. We settled on a timber design, using laminated veneer lumber (LVL) to create the structure. The core building is a series of portal frames, which have a clear span of 42m, the longest for a timber structure in New Zealand, which allows the clear exhibition space the museum needs. The structure is 55m long, 50m wide and 15m high, and fitted out to MOTAT’s very high standards of presentation.