
One of Summerset’s major New Zealand projects is the 6-hectare Milldale Village, north of Auckland, centred around a new Regional Main Building (RMB) and surrounded by independent villas and townhouses.
In a departure from Summerset’s typical concrete-and-steel approach, the Milldale RMB adopted cross-laminated timber (CLT) for internal floors and roof structures to reduce embodied carbon and explore programme efficiencies.
The result delivered tangible benefits, including a six-week roof programme gain, reduced carbon emissions, and lower foundation demands due to the building’s lighter weight, alongside valuable learnings in service coordination, moisture management, temporary works, shop drawing timing, and navigating evolving fire compliance solutions for CLT in New Zealand.
WoodWorks Issue – 24 Mar 2026
Welcome
Greetings from your WoodWorks team. This week we showcase two key mass timber projects with considerable local input both in professional services and engineered wood design and mass timber supply. Mass timber is now gaining real traction in certain types of built environment and retirement villages for Summerset Group would be close to the top of that list. Mass timber has also played (no pun intended) a supporting role in the new BNZ Performing Arts Theatre recently opened in Hamilton. It replaced the Founders Theatre, built in 1962, which had a 50-year life. Speaking of popular mass timber building typologies, and looking across the Tasman, Monash University in Clayton has once again chosen CLT for a hybrid design for another student accommodation building project on their Clayton campus in Melbourne. Finally and naturally, the Liverpool School of Architecture is the ideal showcase for some stunning examples of engineered wood performing in a starring role. Happy masstimbering for another Tuesday!


Hamilton’s BNZ Theatre

Summerset case study

Monash University student housing

