State of the art technology at the new central Auckland site will more than double the storage and discharge capacity at the current Wynyard Wharf site.

"The building was absolutely designed for structural support and integrity but it also has a lot of architectural merit. It has its own inherent beauty," says Andrew Moss, General Manager - Golden Bay Cement. "As a structure it fits very well into the port environment and was designed specifically to keep within the allowable building envelope."

The Eastport service centre is arguably one of the more attractive structures in the area. In a first of its kind to be used in the southern hemisphere, "flat-store" technology replaces the traditional 50 metre silos seen at Wynyard Wharf, with a lower profile 18m structure.

"This was a very interesting project due to the shape of the concrete fins and the form work used to create them," said Rob McKinnon, Materials Manager - Firth Northern. "Initially it was thought that standard concrete would suffice, but due to the considerable amount of steel work congestion within the fins we changed to a self-compacting mix. We had to design a new self-compacting mix with a 10mm stone which worked successfully and created the desired affect."